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PSYCHIASIS 

HEALING THROUGH THE SOUL 



BY 

Charles H. Mann 

A Minister of the New Church 



AUTHOR OF 

The Christ of God" " Five Sermons on Marriage " " What 
God Hath Cleansed " "Interior Spiritual Living " 



— Acts iv., 30 



BOSTON 

MASSACHUSETTS NEW-CHURCH UNION 

16 Arlington Street 

1900 



1 



TWO COP»lES RECEIVED, 

Uhr&F^ of Co!sgrot% 

Ufmu Qf the 

6!AHlO1900 

WegUter of Gopyrlghtsjt 






O 1/ kJ ^> ^^ 
Copyright, igoo 

BY 

CHARLES H. MANN 



SeCOND COPY, 



Contents 

PAGE 

I. — Introduction .... 5 

II. — Principles of Rational Thought 9 

III. — The Facts to be Judged . • 21 

IV. — The Power of the Mind over 

THE Body 35 

V. — Healing by the Prayer of Faith 45 

VI. — Metaphysical Healing . . 57 

VI I. — Christian Science as to its Doc- 
trines 72 

VIII. — Christian Science as to its 

Rapid Growth .... 92 

IX. — The New-Church Doctrine of 

Mind Cure .... 103 

X. — Health through Righteous Liv- 
ing 113 

XI. — The Right Application of Men- 
tal Healing . . . .124 

XII. — The Supreme Application . . 144 

XIII. — Concluding Words . . .152 



PSYCHIASIS 



I. 
INTRODUCTION 

SOME years since in the ordinary 
performance of my pastoral duties 
I was moved by the state of popular 
thought on the subject to deliver a 
series of three sermons on ''The Heal- 
ing of the Body Through the Soul." 
They were intended to indicate some of 
the general principles which should ob- 
tain in the New-Churchman's considera- 
tion of the broad subject of mental heal- 
ing, under whatever name or system 
classed. The discourses were found of 
such use to those who heard them that 
they were published in The New-Church 
5 



psiecbiasis 



Messenger, and were subsequently repub- 
lished in pamphlet form. This edition 
soon became exhausted, and a second 
and revised pamphlet was issued. This 
is now out of print. Some two thou- 
sand copies have been sold and there is 
still a demand for them. 

In seeking to meet this demand, I am 
moved to rewrite rather than merely to 
republish the former treatise, for two 
reasons : First, because my conception 
of the theme has ripened since its first 
treatment ; experience, observation, and 
study have taught many things which 
were not in my possession at the time 
of the original sermons. And, secondly, 
it is necessary to rewrite the whole es- 
say because of the growth of my con- 
viction of the truth of the doctrine 
that there is a healing of the body 
through the soul, and especially because 
I have found that the doctrines of the 
New Church are more explicit in this 
direction than is generally supposed. 
There is an ever-increasing clearness 
6 



ITntroDuction 

of teaching to be found in the writings 
of the New Church as we continue to 
study them with our eyes open to see 
what they have to say on this subject. 
In the little pamphlet just referred 
to I said : " I believe in the healing of 
the body through the soul. I believe 
in the descent of the divine life with 
health-giving power, not only into the 
celestial and spiritual planes of man's 
life, but even onto the plane of his phys- 
ical existence." All this I can cordially 
reaffirm, and to it add that I believe that 
in the New Church we have doctrines 
under whose guidance we may practice 
and experience all the healing of the 
body that can be procured from any 
other system of teaching or practice. 
We have everything we need in the New 
Jerusalem. Nay, more than this, I be- 
lieve that in the New Church we have 
not only as good, but better teachings 
than elsewhere, teachings that will lead 
to a more interior, and therefore more 
valuable healing than can be found in 



any other system of doctrine. We know 
not the treasures that are in our posses- 
sion. 

To this it should be added that the 
present treatment is intended to give a 
very cursory view of the various isms 
and cults that have arisen from mental 
or metaphysical healing, to pass such a 
judgment upon their nature or quality 
as the doctrines of the New Church 
seem to warrant, and finally to bring 
out in contrast our own teachings. 

I shall make whatever use of the ma- 
terial of the first pamphlet may seem 
wise ; but the treatment now is essen- 
tially new. The order is different : 
phases of the subject will be brought 
in which were not alluded to in the first 
essay, and, especially, it will be con- 
sidered from an experience which at 
that time was not possessed. This re- 
written treatise will be given to the 
public, first, as a series of papers in T/ie 
New-Church Messenger, and secondly, as 
a small book. 

8 



n. 

PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL 
THOUGHT 

IN beginning the treatment of the 
subject of healing the body through 
the soul, certain general principles of 
rational thought should be clearly de- 
fined and conscientiously observed, that 
our thinking may be true and our con- 
clusions well assured. Many have fall- 
en into errors of a very serious nature 
by their assuming without even stating 
them, some very broad and very bad ma- 
jor premises by which they are led into 
conclusions the most illogical. Assu- 
ming erroneous general principles is 
equivalent to begging the question. A 
plain formulation of the underlying 
laws of rational thought, so far as those 
9 



p012Cbiasl0 

laws apply to the judgment of the ques- 
tions we are to discuss, is essential to 
any correct thinking about them. 

By what principles shall we be gov- 
erned in our reasoning ? 

First : I lay down this general law, 
that the doctrine we are seeking must 
be substantiated by proof additional to 
the external success in the practice of 
healing of those who advocate it. The 
achievement of physical healing by one 
who works through mental instrumen- 
talities, demonstrates the presence of a 
power adequate to the effect, but it does 
not prove that the special theory, or 
doctrine, which the practitioner pro- 
claims is true. If he would prove the 
truth of his theory from the success of 
his practice, he must show that their 
relationship is that of cause and effect, 
and not of coincidence. A young 
mother once told me that she gave her 
child Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup 
to "make his teeth grow," and pointed 
to his vigorous incisors as evidence of 



principles of IRational ^bougbt 



the wisdom of her course. Through 
an erroneously assumed major premise, 
many a theory has been supported by 
a similar nonsequitur. 

The doctrine we hold concerning 
the healing of the body through mental 
forces should be demonstrated like any 
other doctrine of spiritual thought ; that 
is, by such things as the teaching of 
the sacred Scriptures, the doctrines of 
the Church, the laws of spiritual living, 
the history of man's experience in spir- 
itual affairs, and by all other considera- 
tions which have weight in determining 
what shall be accepted as true, and what 
shall be rejected as false. The success 
of the practitioner is one of the consid- 
erations which fall into line with the 
others, and is not alone to prove the 
doctrine. 

Some schools of psychotherapeutics 
not only lay down the laws of the re- 
lation of mind and body which they ex- 
pect one to accept because of the fact 
of their success, they venture into the 



1P5^cbta6l0 

fields of theologic thought and teach 
concerning the nature of the Divine 
Being. 

But the faith they hold concerning 
God and immortality and spiritual life 
and other matters of church instruction, 
has no more authority on account of 
what is successful in their system of 
healing, than if they believed in the 
most materialistic form of medical prac- 
tice. Their religious faith has on that 
account no more authority than the re- 
ligious faith of any successful physician. 
Nor is what is true in their doctrines 
of the spiritual healing of the body 
invalidated by any vagaries in their 
thought on theological subjects. Suc- 
cessful mind-cure practitioners are very 
apt to be dogmatic in telling what is, 
and what is not, in matters whose truth 
or falsity is not involved in the success 
of their method of practice. 

This is a very important distinction. 
We must always separate in our minds 
the question of fact from the question 



tvincipicB of TRatlonal C^bougbt 



of doctrine in the study of these phe- 
nomena. 

Secondly : All phenomena of this 
kind must be regarded as non-miracu- 
lous. The doctrine of the miracle, as 
that word has in former times been un- 
derstood in the church, is repugnant 
not only to our present intelligence, but 
to our spiritual thought and affection 
as well. Whatever the powers may be 
which accomplish the effects we are 
considering in reference to our mental 
states, they cannot be essentially dif- 
ferent from the forces which do such 
things in the ordinary experiences of 
life. It is not uncommon for us to 
speak of the power of nature. He 
who is ill, if he be properly cared for 
and his vital forces have sufficient 
strength, will naturally recover ; and 
we say. The power of nature did it. 
The man who breaks his arm need only 
properly care for it, and the power of 
nature will in a marvelous way form a 
new bone at the point of fracture and 
13 



knit the pieces together stronger than 
ever. 

What is this power of nature that 
performs thus in the common experi- 
ences of all of us a miracle as wonder- 
ful as any claimed by faith-cure ? If by 
power of nature we mean some inani- 
mate, inherent force of material parti- 
cles, then the words, " power of nature," 
express a doctrine from the infernal 
regions. For material particles are only 
the subjects of higher forces ; they are 
themselves but passive recipients and 
instruments. The power of nature in 
healing a broken arm is simply the 
power of life, which in a marvelous way 
descends into the body and effects the 
cure. 

But this is true of all the forces of 
nature. The wonders of the vegetable 
kingdom are simply exhibitions of the 
forces of life in constructing out of the 
material of the earth their forms of use 
and loveliness. The same is true of 
the myriad of things that are con- 
14 



Hbrfncfplcs of IRatfonal tTbougbt 



stantly taking place in our physical life. 
The growth of our bodies, their preser- 
vation in life and in strength, and all 
the numberless operations that are in- 
cessantly taking place within them, are 
the work of the forces of life. The 
"power of nature," so-called, is in re- 
ality nothing else than the power of 
divine life flowing into the realm of 
nature. It is life from the spiritual 
world which clothes the earth with veg- 
etable beauty. It is life from the spri- 
tual world that gives form and strength 
to all animal creations, including the 
body of man. All healing, then, of the 
kind we are considering, must be looked 
upon as simply a method whereby the 
fountains of life are more copiously 
opened. Healing from some spiritual 
cause, and healing by means of the or- 
dinary processes of nature, must be in 
their essence identical. Both are the 
effects of the powers of life. Both are 
from the Lord. 

The doctrine, then, which we are 
15 



looking for is one which will show us 
how the vital forces of the soul may be 
made to flow more abundantly into the 
realm of nature for the accomplishment 
of their divinely appointed mission. 
The healing of the body through the 
soul is simply the cure of disease by 
a greater opening into this fountain 
life, made through spiritual instrumen- 
talities, whereby there comes into the 
body a richer influx of spiritual forces, 
accomplishing in brief time and in un- 
usual efficiency effects which are gen- 
erally produced by long and tedious 
processes. According to the doctrines 
of the New Church, all the phenomena 
of life in the whole realm of nature, 
including the healing of man's body, 
are effects of the forces of life which 
flow down from the Lord through the 
heavens. To produce richer effects on 
this plane of life through the states of 
the soul, is simply to make a wider open- 
ing for the descent of this influx of life. 
We call it heaUng through the soul be- 
i6 



principles of TRational ^bougbt 



cause these outpourings from the foun- 
tain of divine life are outwardly and 
evidently procured through mental ef- 
forts. 

This may be amply illustrated by 
many natural things in our modern 
methods of life. Not many years ago 
the traveler was forced to make his way, 
if not on foot, at least slowly and tedi- 
ously by means of the strength of ani- 
mals. But now by the use of steam or 
electricity he accomplishes the same 
effects more perfectly, more luxuriously, 
at less expense, and vastly more quickly 
than before. In using these agencies 
we draw more freely from nature's great 
storehouse of forces, and she does for 
us in this way indefinitely more than 
she could do for us in the old way. 

To a doctrine demonstrating some 
such opening by the soul of such forces 
of life must we look for the orderly ex- 
planation of the phenomena before us. 
They are the effects of the richer open- 
ing of the soul to the reception of in- 
17 



p6iecbia0ls 

flux from the spiritual world, whereby 
the vital powers there, which are the 
real powers of nature, are enabled to 
express themselves more freely on the 
lower planes of life. 

This conception of the subject is 
illustrated by a multitude of similar 
features of our modern life. We are 
continually learning new methods of 
drawing from the exhaustless store- 
house of natural forces the power we 
need to accomplish the objects of our 
lives. May it not be that there are 
also spiritual ways hitherto unknown of 
so reaching the storehouse of vital 
powers, which is the divine love, as to 
draw from its exhaustless resources the 
forces of life which shall heal our bodies, 
give us strength, and enable us to bear 
the burdens of life } 

From our New-Church point of view 
we must lay it down as a canon of in- 
terpretation that whatever be the instru- 
mentality that produces the effect, it 
must be universal and orderly, neither 
i8 



prlndplc0 ot 'Kattonal ^bougbt 



magical nor mystical, simply a fuller 
opening into the abundance of the di- 
vine provisions for the blessing of man. 
Thirdly : It must be remembered that 
no theory a person may hold concerning 
a phenomenon is demonstrated because 
we do not have a counter theory to sug- 
gest in its place. Persons sometimes 
say : If this be not a true theory, then 
how can you explain the facts .'' But it 
is quite possible for facts to be inex- 
plicable under any principle we are at 
present acquainted with, and yet the 
theory suggested be utterly false. We 
are surrounded by inexpUcable mys- 
teries, and the privilege of holding our 
judgment in abeyance until a doctrine 
shall be brought forward that commends 
itself to our intelligence is not only log- 
ical, it is an essential position for one 
to hold who would arrive at the truth. 
The acknowledgment that we do not 
understand a thing by no means requires 
that we shall accept any special expla- 
nation of another person. One should 
19 



p612Cbfasf6 

hold his mind open, but should not be 
forced by the recognition of his own 
lack of information into accepting that 
which is not to his rational thought de- 
monstrated. 

To repeat, we hold to these three 
principles in the consideration of our 
subject : First, that the doctrine we are 
seeking must be substantiated by proof 
additional to the external success in the 
practice of healing of those who advo- 
cate it ; secondly, all phenomena of this 
kind must be regarded as non-miracu- 
lous ; and, thirdly, that no^ theory is de- 
monstrated because we do not have a 
counter theory to suggest in its place. 



ao 



III. 
THE FACTS TO BE JUDGED 

HAVING considered the laws of 
thought in accordance with which 
the subject of healing through the soul 
should be discussed, we will bring be- 
fore ourselves the facts to be judged. 
They may be logically divided into three 
classes. These are (i) instances which 
are evidently and professedly the direct 
effects of the states of the mind over 
the health of the body ; (2) those claim- 
ing to be from the influence of prayer, 
or from the intervention of God ; and 
(3) the phenomena known as Christian 
Science, Mind Cure, Metaphysical Heal- 
ing, and similar manifestations of recent 
history. 

First, as to the health-giving power 
of the mind over the body. It is es- 



sential to any true apprehension of the 
subject that the vast but little recog- 
nized might of man's soul in determin- 
ing the states of the body should be 
appreciatively brought before us. To 
some extent and in various ways the 
influence of the mind upon the body 
for weal or for woe, has always been 
recognized. Throughout the ages it 
has been known that happiness is health- 
giving. The ancient proverb, Mens sana 
in corpore sano, a healthy mind in a 
healthy body, by its association of mind 
and body, recognizes the health-giving 
or health-destroying tie that links these 
two constituents of our nature. 

In trifling ways we all have experi- 
ences of this dominant power of the 
mind over the body. I recall an in- 
stance of a somewhat susceptible woman 
who was caused to vomit by a roguish 
boy who pretended that he saw her 
devour a worm with her strawberries. 
Another woman was caused to faint, 
simply from listening to the story of a 



tTbe 3facts to be 5uC>geb 



surgical operation. I have been told 
by the captains of passenger steam- 
ships that whenever any serious danger 
arises at sea all the seasick passengers 
forget their illness, and practically re- 
cover. In these various instances, phys- 
ical illness or physical recovery is evi- 
dently produced by purely mental states. 
In the most superficial affairs of our 
lives, how readily the body responds 
with the most complicated physical ac- 
tion to even the simplest mental states. 
The face may be flushed by a thought ; 
the body grows chilly from a slight 
fright. The method of one's breathing 
varies with the states of his thought. 
The stomach is exceedingly sensitive 
to the mental feelings of either disgust 
or satisfaction. And it is a matter of 
observation with medical men that there 
are certain physical derangements con- 
nected with particular mental condi- 
tions. I have seen in medical books 
prescriptions for homesickness, grief, 
and melancholy, because, as was ex- 
23 



plained by the physician to whom I 
spoke upon the subject, these mental 
states produce corresponding physical 
conditions to which the medicines are 
addressed. 

In these common experiences there 
will be found every degree in the variety 
and the completeness of the healing 
effect of the mental states. It is very 
common that intense excitement will 
make one unconscious of what would 
under other circumstances produce the 
severest pain. When fighting, men 
often receive severe injuries without 
knowing it, and it is not uncommon 
for soldiers in battle to be seriously 
wounded and not for a time discover 
it. I recall the story of a man who was 
retreating to his fortifications from hav- 
ing made a sally, when his foot was shot 
off just before he reached the entrance 
of the enclosure, and he stumped his 
way to a place of safety without discov- 
ering his hurt until within the walls. 
We entertain children when they are 
24 



Zbc jpacts to be 5ut)ge& 



suffering to get them to forget their 
pain. A story of a priest is related in 
which he was enabled to be unconscious 
of the pain of a surgical operation by 
absorbing himself in the enraptured 
contemplation of his crucifix. 

Even in those instances in which 
medicine seems to effect the cure, it 
may be the mind that does it. We 
believe it was Dr. Hammond, of New 
York City, who related that he once 
procured for his devoted Roman Cath- 
olic servant a small bottle of Lourdes 
water for the cure of some ailment. 
He first administered it to her under 
the name of " aqua crotonis," which he 
told her he desired her to try first. 
Under that name, that is, under the 
influence of her faith that it was not 
Lourdes water, it did her no good. The 
Doctor then administered what was cro- 
ton water in fact, under the name of 
Lourdes water, and she was very much 
benefited. We recall also a certain 
Dr. Jennings, an old school practitioner, 
25 



Ipsiscbiaeis 

who became convinced that medicines 
were a mistake, and administered gin- 
gerbread pills to his patients, they sup- 
posing them to be the usual remedies. 
The change was very beneficial to the 
patients. It was evidently the faith 
in these, not the thing, which accom- 
plished the result. The power of one's 
belief as an instrument of physical cure 
is illustrated also by people's faith in 
charms, amulets, or what not, many of 
which have at times seemed to exert 
a good influence over those who believed 
in them. 

Secondly, we have the instances of 
healing of the body through the soul 
associated with one's religious state, 
such as healing from the prayer of faith, 
or the intervention of God. Through- 
out all historic ages, the healing of the 
body through the soul has been mani- 
fested in connection with one's religious 
faith and character. This is a most 
important phase of the subject. We 
must not forget its prominence in the 
26 



tibe 3fact0 to be 5uOge& 



life of the Lord, in which healing 
through the faith of those He served, 
was so constantly practised. How many- 
were His miracles of healing ! And 
when John sent to Jesus to inquire 
whether He were the Christ, He ap- 
pealed to His acts of healing as the 
things which should decide the question. 
" Go your way and tell John the things 
which ye do hear and see : the blind 
receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 
hear, and the dead are raised up." 

Physical strength and health from 
spiritual faith were promised to the dis- 
ciples. "And these signs shall follow 
them that believe : in my name they 
shall cast out devils ; . . . they shall 
take up serpents, and if they drink any 
deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt 
them, they shall lay hands on the sick, 
and they shall recover." These prom- 
ises have been claimed in the history 
of the Christian Church, and many be- 
lievers have professed to have been 
27 



healed of infirmities of various kinds 
through faith in the promises of the 
Lord. I have been personally acquainted 
with some who made this profession. 
This claim has expressed itself in the 
existence of practitioners of this kind 
of healing — faith-cure doctors ; and 
even institutions have been established 
in which this spiritual means of cure 
was the most prominent of its modes 
of treatment. 

When associated with religion, heal- 
ing through the mind has been taken 
as an evidence of the validity of one's 
claim to spiritual authority, and many 
denominations have laid hold of alleged 
facts of this kind as evidencing the 
truth of their doctrines. Among these 
we may mention the Shakers, who affirm 
that physical cures through spiritual 
states took place at the time of their 
establishment. It is taught in the doc- 
trinal publications of that community 
that the earlier receivers of their faith 
were in a miraculous way healed of their 
28 



^be 3fact0 to be 5u&geD 



infirmities, and this they use as an argu- 
ment to confirm their peculiar tenets. 

The Roman CathoHcs tell of instances 
of the healing of the body through spir- 
itual instrumentalities without number, 
which they relate as evidence of the 
truth of their claim to be the true and 
only duly authorized church. Most 
prominent among their stories of this 
kind is that of the blessing of a foun- 
tain, near Lourdes, in France, by the 
Virgin Mary, as seen in a vision by a 
maiden of that place. 

Only this last June, the Chicago Rec- 
ord contains an account of similar 
miraculous healing at the shrine of Ste. 
Anne de Beaupre, Canada. We have 
met with no stronger or better attested 
cases of healing than is furnished in 
the accounts of this sacred fountain 
and place for the bones of saints. 

Spiritualists (or spiritists) make simi- 
lar affirmations concerning what has 
been done, and can be done, through 
the influence of spirits operating through 
29 



proper mediums. When a young man 
I once received treatment of this kind, 
and with apparent benefit. 

In all these instances we have a 
second class of facts which we should 
have in view before we can attain unto 
any true analysis of the subject. 

Thirdly, we have the recent exhibi- 
tions of this kind which seem to come 
not from the normal control of the body 
by the mind, nor from God's answer to 
the prayer of faith, but from the mental 
denial of the power of illness, from the 
affirmation of the inherently divine na- 
ture of the soul, and from the incor- 
poration into one's mental structure 
of many other conceptions and ideas. 
These are the most marked phenomena 
of healing the body through mental, 
or soul, influences — phenomena which 
have shown themselves in decidedly 
modern times. They are found in va- 
rious cults and sects, which proclaim 
doctrines of similar appearance under 
the various names of ** Christian Sci- 
30 



^be jfacta to be 5uDgeD 



ence," "Mind Cure," "Metaphysical 
Healing," and kindred names. Some 
of these denominations, notably that of 
Christian Science, not only would cure, 
but are prepared to supply their sub- 
jects with an entirely new philosophy 
and a new theological system, with a 
new worship, a new priesthood, and a 
new interpretation of the Word. 

These new schools claim that disease 
and illness of every kind are absolutely 
unnecessary, and that perfect health 
can be realized through the faith which 
they prescribe. They point with assur- 
ance to many who, they claim, have 
been reclaimed from all sickness, and 
I once knew one of them to remark 
that they recruited their ranks from 
the graveyard. These schools of men- 
tal healing, from their newness, their 
aggressiveness, and their prominence, 
are the ones which most forcibly appeal 
to the New-Churchman for considera- 
tion and judgment. 

In the consideration of all these ex- 
31 



amples of psychiasis, I separate entirely 
the question of fact, or at least the 
question of appearances honestly taken 
for facts, from the question of doctrines, 
or interpretation, or principle. Re- 
garded merely as the reports of honest- 
intentioned witnesses, I am not inclined 
to question the truth of the main claims 
of these various manifestations of the 
power of the mind over the body. Doubt- 
less many cures have been effected 
through mere mental influences, through 
joy, through hope, through will power, 
through a change of faith, and through 
other mental states. Doubtless, too, 
many cures have been effected seem- 
ingly through prayer. And we are 
prepared to grant a similar appearance 
of validity to the claims of the recent 
schools which make so prominent a fea- 
ture of the healing of the body through 
the soul. 

But all of these systems have their 
degrees of failure. Though the advo- 
cates of some of these sects claim al- 
32 



tbc 3fact5 to be 3-ut)ge& 



most limitless power of this kind, that 
claim has not in any of them been in 
my judgment substantiated by the 
facts. It is true that in the instances 
of their non-success, there is that great 
unknown quantity, the faith of the in- 
dividual, and that the enthusiasts of 
any school can easily claim, when there 
is failure, that the fault is not with the 
system, but that the requisite degree 
of faith is wanting. 

But in my experience, the evidence 
of faith has, in certain instances of 
failure, been so tremendous, that the 
plea that faith was wanting is much 
more difficult of acceptance than the 
claim that the system does not apply 
to the case. I have known instances 
of those whose faith in the recovering 
power of prayer was so explicit that 
the evidence of an absolute faith in a 
coming restoration to health was as 
great as could be given ; and then fol- 
lowed disappointment, and a tragic 
collapse and death. 
33 



In Christian Science I have witnessed 
as many failures as seeming successes, 
if not more ; and I have known a num- 
ber of unspeakably sad experiences in 
those who have trusted wholly and un- 
questioningly to what is promised. 
Victims to this class of faith are well 
known, the character of some having 
been so extreme as to provoke an ap- 
peal to the law to determine whether 
one who so gives himself up should not 
be prevented from doing what was by 
the appellants regarded as a species of 
suicide. A very dear friend of mine I 
cannot help regarding as a victim of 
this sort of infatuation, refusing all ra- 
tional treatment until it was too late, 
and death came to her relief. I am not 
now discussing the doctrine or the the- 
ory of Christian Science, but simply its 
alleged facts. They are by no means 
beyond challenge. 



34 



IV. 

THE POWER OF THE MIND 
OVER THE BODY 

WHAT shall we do with all the 
facts I have enumerated con- 
cerning the healing of the body through 
the soul ? How shall we account for 
them ? In what way shall they be in- 
terpreted ? What shall be the doctrine 
founded upon them ? What is the truth 
they are intended to bring to us ? What 
does the New Church teach us about 
such things, and by what means shall 
we take advantage of the health-giving 
forces which they reveal ? 

In seeking replies to this flood of in- 
terrogations which comes rushing upon 
us, we must not forget the law of in- 
terpretation already insisted upon, that 
the question of fact and the question 
35 



of doctrine are entirely separate. We 
may accept the fact, and be ignorant of 
the principle which is involved in it ; 
and we may believe a person's word as 
to the thing that has taken place, with- 
out being logically required to accept 
the doctrine he founds upon it. 

In general there have been founded 
on these phenomena three doctrines, 
representing three schools of thought. 

The first holds that all these things 
are accounted for under the commonly 
accepted principles concerning the in- 
fluence of the mind over the body. 
This is the refuge of the skeptic when 
called upon to accept any of the isms 
and cults whose doctrines, it is claimed, 
are confirmed by these psychophysical 
healings. And doubtless all will ac- 
cord some position to this claim. The 
practical question is where to draw the 
line. To what extent, the honest in- 
quirer asks, will the generally acknowl- 
edged normal influence of the mind 
over the body account for these things } 
36 



Zbc Ipowcr of tbe /BbinD over tbe JSoC)i5 



In my judgment, the power of the 
mind to ward off diseases from the 
body, and to hold it in a state of health, 
a power always and everywhere in some 
degree recognized, is much greater than 
has heretofore been generally under- 
stood, and that it is sufficient to account 
for the greater part of the phenomena 
in question, without recourse to faith- 
cure, mind-cure, or Christian Science 
doctrine. If with the little observation 
which has been given to this phase of 
the relation of the soul and the body, 
the quick and delicate physical response 
to man's slightest mental state has been 
noted, what may we not expect to dis- 
cover from a more extended and intelli- 
gent study of the subject ? and that, 
too, without any reference to any new 
system of doctrine or of worship ? If 
marked physical effects are produced 
from trifling mental causes, how mighty, 
how interior, how effective may be the 
physical effects produced from more 
subtle and more powerful states of the 
37 



soul ! If the insignificant experiences 
of embarrassment, timidity, or fright, 
show themselves at once in physical ac- 
tion, may we not reasonably conclude 
that the more profound emotions of 
the soul, its deep-seated convictions, its 
controlling purposes, and its interior 
motives, must produce correspondingly 
more far-reaching effects ? 

Analyzing this power of mind over 
body, we find that it may be grouped 
under four heads : (i) will-power ; (2) 
the power of conviction, or faith ; (3) 
the power which comes from concentra- 
tion ; and (4) the influence of subjec- 
tion, of putting one mind under the 
control of another. 

I. Will-power is by far the most 
conspicuous of the forms of mental 
control in the body. Its vast might in 
man's physical organism is astounding. 
Often has it enabled a person to rise 
from a sick bed and by sheer strength 
of volition to drive illness from his 
members. This is the form of mind- 
38 



Zbe power ot tbe /lRln& ovct tbe :Bo^^ 



rule in the body most generally known, 
and most extensively recognized. 

But will-power, with all its dramatic 
exhibitions of itself, is by no means the 
strongest of man's metaphysical sources 
of physical healing. It is too self-con- 
scious, and thus too dependent upon its 
self-strength. And especially it lacks 
efficiency by acting in a faith in the 
greatness of the power of what it seeks 
to vanquish. Will-power acknowledges 
the strength of its opponent, and seeks 
to overthrow him. That acknowledg- 
ment gives the enemy a foothold in the 
mind, and thereby is a source of weak- 
ness. Yet will-power is essential to 
healing through the soul, since it is 
will-power that enables a man of faith 
to embody his belief in actual deeds. 
This is shown in some of the Lord's 
acts of healing. " Stretch forth thine 
hand," He said to the man with a with- 
ered hand, and it was the man's will- 
power that obeyed. But it was through 
his faith that he was healed. Will- 
39 



lP012Cbfa6f0 

power makes physically real the con- 
victions of man's soul. But its position 
is subordinate as an actual source of 
power. It is not the primal source of 
the healing. This is one of the special 
lessons of recent developments. 

2. The power which one's convic- 
tions, or faith, exerts over the body is 
almost a revelation in modern mental- 
healing manifestations. Under this di- 
vision I class fear, and its opposite, con- 
fidence ; and also the whole attitude of 
a man toward his physical ills. It is 
through these states of the soul's con- 
victions that the great health-producing 
power of the mind over the body is ex- 
erted. The Chairman of the Board of 
Health of New York City, once related 
to me how in the efforts of the Board 
to isolate contagious diseases, espe- 
cially smallpox, their officers were often 
obliged to enter the houses where 
friends had concealed the sick man, 
and carry him out in their arms. To 
my question as to whether these officers 
40 



Zbc power ot tbe ^inD over tbe JBoD^ 



did not themselves sometimes catch the 
disease, he replied that he had never 
known an instance, though he did not 
employ immunes. " How do you ac- 
count for it ? " I inquired further. " I 
do not know," he answered, " unless it 
be from their absolute freedom from 
fear." Here was a freedom from con- 
tagion as ample as that which Christian 
Science professes to give, but without 
Christian Science doctrine. 

Under this division, which I have 
called the power of conviction, comes 
the influence which anticipation exerts 
for good or for ill. The well-known 
story of the king's jester, who, in a trial 
for Ihe-majeste^ had been condemned 
to be beheaded, illustrates this special 
phase of the subject. The trial, the 
condemnation, and the sentence, were 
all intended as a grand joke, though 
tragic enough to its victim. At the 
final scene a pail of water was dashed 
over the condemned man's head in the 
place of the blow from the executioner's 
41 



Ipsiscbfasis 

axe. But when the spectators looked 
for a joyous denouement of their pleas- 
antry, it was found that the man was 
dead. Anticipation caused the cold 
water to kill him as effectually as 
though his head had been severed from 
his body. 

3. The power of the mind over the 
body, by what I have called concentra- 
tion, is something tremendous. By ab- 
sorption in one idea one may become 
oblivious to all other things of life. 
The stories of soldiers from the excite- 
ment of battle unconscious of wounds, 
and the account of a priest forgetting 
the pain of a surgical operation through 
the contemplation of his crucifix, al- 
ready related, are to the point. This 
feature of the mental control of bodily 
state is very prominent in mind-cure 
systems as we shall find later on. Its 
special force is very livingly illustrated 
by the insane who from absorption in 
one idea become incapable of recogniz- 
ing anything at variance with it. 
42 



XLbc ipower ot the /iRlnD over tbc :©oDi2 



4. The effect upon the body of sub- 
mitting to the will of another is exhib- 
ited in its most pronounced form in 
hypnotism. Under the influence of 
hypnotism the subject may be made en- 
tirely unconscious of the pain of phys- 
ical derangements, and on the other 
hand he may be made to feel, or to 
think he feels, pains which have no 
bodily condition to account for them. 
Hypnotism, conscious or unconscious, 
imposed at times by others, and at 
times by one's self, is a frequent instru- 
ment of mental-heaHng operation. 

With these four methods in which 
the mind manifests its power in the 
body clearly before us, we can easily 
understand why to many no new doc- 
trine need be taught in order to ac- 
count for all the phenomena of healing 
through the soul. It is merely a ques- 
tion of mental power, and so far as the 
practices of mental healers look to 
bringing the minds of their patients 
through will-power, through conviction 
43 



or faith, through concentration, through 
subjection, or through any two or more 
of these, to throw off the ailment, all 
their achievements are fully explained 
by the simple doctrine of the well- 
known power of mind over body. 

But the question will arise as to 
whether all these modes of mental in- 
fluence over the body are right, and 
thus as to what, if any, are to be 
avoided. May we not sacrifice a men- 
tal balance for seeming physical health } 
May there not be practices which 
threaten one's moral integrity .? May 
not the question of a true spiritual life 
be involved in what one is called upon 
to believe and to do } These, the most 
momentous features of our subject, will 
come up later. 



44 



V. 

HEALING BY THE PRAYER OF 
FAITH 

THE second general doctrine which 
deals with the healing of the 
body through the soul, associates it 
with religion, and is known under the 
name of faith-cure ; that is, it accom- 
plishes the cure through the prayer of 
faith. A very prominent and earnest 
faith-cure advocate defines their faith 
as resting in the ''power of healing- 
through the prayer of faith," Proba- 
bly most of my readers know persons 
who hold these views. Doctrines of 
this kind have been advocated in the 
New-ChtLvch Messenger. What are the 
teachings of the New Church on these 
positions .-* 

First, it will strike the New-Church 
45 



student as seeking to move God, the 
unchangeable, to do for us what He 
would otherwise be unwilling to do. 
This is the objection so efficiently urged 
against the natural conception of prayer, 
namely, that it is an assumption on the 
part of man to guide the Almighty, 
and seems to depend upon a personal 
act on the part of the Lord in carrying 
out the object which he who prays de- 
sires to have accomplished, rather than 
a reception into his soul of the cur- 
rents of infinite power which come 
pouring into the hearts of men for their 
acceptance. 

A still more serious objection to 
every form of faith-cure I have ever 
met with is that it appears to place 
spiritual life more in the exceptional 
experiences of mankind than in the 
normal and ordinary acts of their lives. 
If there is one truth above all other 
truths important, it is that we make 
spiritual life a something that is present 
at every instant and in every affair, es- 
46 



Mealing b^ tbe ipr^^er of jfaitb 



pecially in business and routine in- 
terests. The acknowledgment of the 
Lord's presence and of his providence 
should belong as much to the things 
which seem to come from one's pru- 
dence, as to those things which come 
from sources we do not know. As it 
is as much the divine providence which 
protects us from evil when no evil ap- 
pears to be present, as it is when we 
meet with a narrow escape, so the di- 
vine power is as much with us in giving 
us blessings when we seem to procure 
these blessings by our own prudence, 
as it is present with us when they come 
unexpectedly and in coincidence with 
our necessities, or even after a direct 
petition for them. He who receives 
wages for honest labor, receives them 
as much from the Lord as he who in 
the strait of necessity is given by the 
impulse of some loving heart the re- 
sources that he needs. The man who 
recovers through careful nursing, or di- 
eting, or medical treatment, is as truly 
47 



healed by the Lord as is he who 
through pleading prayer and the laying 
on of hands rises from his bed of sick- 
ness. I shudder at any doctrine of re- 
ligious faith which makes the Lord 
present in what is unusual, or peculiar, 
or striking, rather than in what is or- 
dinary and commonplace. Faith-cure 
doctrines often lead their followers to 
look to the exceptional as indicating 
the divine presence rather than to the 
ordinary ; and this is a great danger in 
their teachings and practices. 

A third objection to the faith-cure is 
that it not unfrequently leads to spir- 
itual unhealthiness and infatuation. In 
the forms of its application, it is relig- 
ion at fever heat. As the assurance 
on the part of the afflicted sufferer that 
he will recover is a part of the faith 
required, it has at times happened that 
the expectation was all that was at- 
tained, and disheartenment and despair 
were brought to the sick who relapsed 
after the excitement had passed. 
48 



BeaUns &s tbe prai^er of 3faitb 



To my mind, also, it is an objection 
to this system as it is nearly universally 
practiced, that the cure is effected so 
commonly through the instrumentality 
of some faith-cure practitioner. There 
seem to be high-priests in the religion 
of faith-cure, through whose instrumen- 
tality the work is usually accomplished. 
If the Lord is present with his health- 
giving power, seeking admission into 
every heart, we ought to be able to re- 
ceive Him without the aid of a persua- 
sive agent, whose flowing language and 
magnetic presence may induce the state 
of piety and of faith which shall pro- 
duce the result. 

The faith-cure system, then, meets 
with these several objections from the 
New-Church point of view : That it 
seeks its purpose through the prayers 
of pietism rather than through the 
channels of spiritual character; that it 
places spiritual life, or association with 
God, in what is exceptional ; that it is 
apt to lead to spiritual unhealthiness 
49 



Ip0l5cbia0f0 

and infatuation ; and, last, that it re- 
quires high-priests as agents for its 
practice. 

If it be said that the prayer for heal- 
ing is not intended to move God, but is 
only a mode for bringing him who prays 
into the right attitude, then we may 
reply that in such case the faith-cure 
system ceases to be a separate system, 
but is brought under the category of 
mental healing. Prayer in such case 
is only a mode for bringing the mind 
into the right state of confidence for 
the effective operation of spiritual 
forces in the body, and this second 
theory of healing through the soul be- 
comes simply a section of the first. It 
is, under such an interpretation of it, a 
mode of mental healing, and as such I 
certainly have no objection to urge 
against it. 

But what shall we say then of the 
Lord's acts of healing, and of his prom- 
ises to us, promises I have already al- 
luded to } Are they not intended to 

50 



Mealing f)^ tbe ipra^^er ot Jfaitb 



be really believed and practiced ? This 
is a momentous question, and it is 
asked by earnest and honest souls, and 
I would give it the most solemn con- 
sideration. 

As I understand the teachings of di- 
vine truth we are not to look upon the 
miraculous healing performed by the 
Lord, nor even that by his disciples, as 
constituting a just ground for a belief 
in similar methods of healing to-day. 
There are two reasons why those facts 
do not warrant such a belief. The first 
is because they were given as evidence 
of the Lord's mission and of that of 
his disciples, a reason which does not 
apply at the present time. While they 
are not exclusively to be regarded as 
of this character, since the Lord did 
not wholly found his claims upon them, 
yet to a certain extent at that time 
they were used as such evidence. The 
disciples made this use of them, and in 
at least two instances the Lord ap- 
pealed to them. When the disciples of 
51 



1P6^cbta6i0 

John came to Him, asking whether or 
not He were the One who should come, 
the Lord did not reply directly, but in- 
stead referred to his miraculous works. 
On another occasion the Lord said: 
"If ye believe not my word, yet be- 
lieve for the very works' sake." 

This doctrine is clearly set forth in 
the following passages from Sweden- 
borg's "Divine Providence" and "Apoc- 
alypse Explained : — " 

"As the Jews could not by the in- 
ternal principles of worship be led to 
represent spiritual things, therefore 
they were led, yea, forced and com- 
pelled to such representation by mira- 
cles. . . . But after the Lord mani- 
fested himself, and was received and 
acknowledged in the churches as the 
eternal God, miracles ceased." (Divine 
Providence, 132.) 

" The reason why the Lord healed 
various persons according to their faith 
was because the first and primary prin- 
ciple of the church was that they should 
52 



Bealfng b'Q tbe ipra^^er of jfaftb 



believe the Lord to be God Almighty, 
for without that faith no church could 
have been established." (Apocalypse 
Explained, 815.) 

But is not God unchangeable, the 
reasoner asks, the same yesterday, to- 
day, and forever ? Why should there 
be such a thing as '* an age of mira- 
cles ? " The same God should do to- 
day what He did eighteen centuries 
ago. 

But though God does not change, 
man does ; and God appears differently 
to each according to each one's state. 
And this not only to the individual, but 
to the race-man as well. In the Jewish 
representative of a church there were 
what are called "miracles" which do 
not take place now, just as in infancy a 
wise father does for his child what he 
does not do for his adult son or daugh- 
ter. 

And, secondly — and this is the es- 
pecial reason why I do not regard the 
faith-healing which accompanied the 
53 



P6i2cbfa0l6 

Lord's first coming as indicating a doc- 
trine in reference to the external health 
of the men of the church — the Lord's 
deeds were correspondential represen- 
tations of his divine mission. The 
Lord came to the world to overcome 
hell and remove spiritual evil — to 
make it possible for a man to be spir- 
itually saved. This, his actual mission, 
is represented by his external life upon 
the earth. The curing of physical dis- 
eases in certain individual instances, 
represents the infinite curing of corre- 
sponding spiritual evils for all human- 
ity. This doctrine, that the Lord by 
his omnipotence saves us from our spir- 
itual infirmities in accordance with our 
faith and life, and not that men in fu- 
ture ages could in like manner be 
healed, is the truth embodied in the 
fact of the miraculous healing per- 
formed by Him. 

Hence we read in the " Apocalypse 
Explained": "The third reason why 
faith in the Lord healed those who were 
54 



KcaKna bs tbe pxdi^cx of Jpaltb 



cured was that all the diseases which 
the Lord healed represented and thence 
signified spiritual diseases, to which 
natural diseases correspond, and spir- 
itual diseases cannot be healed except 
by the Lord, and, indeed, by looking 
to His divine omnipotence, and by re- 
pentance of the life, wherefore also He 
sometimes said. Thy sins be forgiven 
thee; go, and sin no more." (815.) 

But having said all this to show that 
we are not now to have miraculous 
healing of the body in answer to 
prayer, as in the days of the disciples, 
I have not destroyed nor intended to 
destroy a real doctrine of faith-cure. 
I have simply substituted another in 
its place. We still have the doctrine 
that there may be a physical healing 
through the prayer of faith. Only in 
this new doctrine we look upon the 
prayer not as a means of moving God, 
but as an instrumentality for bringing 
the mind into an effective state of will- 
power, conviction, concentration, and 
55 



of receptivity to the divine influx for 
throwing off the disease. Faith-cure, 
so-called, under this understanding of 
it, becomes one of the modes of curing 
the body through mind power. 

But there is a doctrine concerning a 
divine healing of the body through the 
soul much more interior than anything 
I have as yet spokon of ; a healing 
which comes to the disciples of the 
Lord to-day in correspondence with 
their spiritual life. This teaching tells 
us that there will be and is now a ful- 
filment of these promises in another 
and an infinitely better way than any 
healing of the body through the prayer 
of faith that has ever been taught. 
What this new and better doctrine is 
will come before us later. 



56 



VI. 

METAPHYSICAL HEALING 

THE third school of doctrine con- 
cerning the healing of the body 
through the soul, is known under va- 
rious names, as Christian Science, Men- 
tal Healing, Mind Cure, Metaphysical 
Healing, etc. All these systems are 
founded on the philosophical principle 
that spiritual things are the only reali- 
ties of existence, and that all material 
things, so called, are but the expression 
of what is spiritual. Some schools 
hold that there is no such thing as mat- 
ter, and others give to matter an exist- 
ence. God as the only reality is abso- 
lute health ; there is no such thing as 
disease, the appearance of disease be- 
ing simply the outer expression of the 
belief of mortal mind. Sickness and 
57 



suffering are thus made to be the crea- 
tion of mental illusion, and possess no 
reality in themselves. Man is essen- 
tially a child of God (God's thought), 
and thus is inmostly divine, and as such 
incapable of illness. 

To be healed of sickness, therefore, 
one need only come into the right men- 
tal state. The convictions of his mind 
from whence comes the appearance of 
his illness, being changed or removed, 
the illness immediately disappears. 
Sickness has no more existence, accord- 
ing to this theory, than the picture 
upon the screen before the stereopticon 
has a reality answering to its appear- 
ance. As it ceases to exist the moment 
the slide is changed, so sickness ceases 
to exist the moment the mental state 
of which it is the expression is removed. 
In order to understand the system prop- 
erly, it should also be known that the 
mental states of people impress each 
other, that there is a community mental 
state, and that the apparent ailments of 
58 



/IBctapb^alcal Mealing 



the flesh may be founded, not on the 
mental state of the individual who is 
the sufferer, but upon the mental state 
of the society of which he is a member. 
Infants and children depend upon this 
general mental conviction, and all are 
very largely under its dominion. 

Metaphysical healers have adopted 
various methods for bringing about the 
desired mental states in the patients 
whom they purpose to cure. The first 
and most natural course they pursue is 
to lead the subject by any considerations 
whatever that will move him to an ac- 
ceptance of their doctrines concerning 
the nature of sickness and the proper 
methods for its removal. If the patient 
can be led into the conviction that his 
sickness is due to a certain mental state, 
and that it will disappear as that state 
is laid aside, a great part of the work is 
accomplished. 

Having brought their patient into a 
right state of conviction, mental healers 
next seek to lead him into what I have 
59 



IPs^cbiaefs 

called concentration. The object of 
concentration is to so fill one with the 
desired conception that he will be led 
to ignore everything inconsistent with 
the end to be attained. A very com- 
mon way for bringing this about is by 
the repetition of sentences. Mr. Wood, 
in his "Ideal Suggestion," prints on 
some of his large octavo pages short 
sentences, having but one sentence on 
the page, in as large type as the page 
will admit. This the patient places 
before himself, absorbs himself in its 
contemplation, until he becomes, as it 
were, saturated with the idea. Thus, 
for instance, the sentence, ** I am well," 
is printed in great black letters across 
the page. Upon this the man fixes his 
eyes intently, gazing upon it with un- 
wavering steadiness, and reiterating the 
words in his thought until his very 
mental fibre becomes so permeated with 
it that every thought or feeling incon- 
sistent with it is driven from him. 
Mental healers also practise the 
60 



^etapbsslcal Mealing 



fourth mode of leading the mind into 
a healing control of the body, which I 
have called *'the influence of subjec- 
tion," or of the control of one mind 
by another. I have known these prac- 
titioners to request their patients to 
yield themselves wholly to them — thus 
rushing in where angels fear to tread ! 
The most common of their modes of 
practicing this control is by what is 
called the " silent treatment." In this 
the practitioner, without any external 
evident communication with the sub- 
ject, brings him vividly before his mind 
and addresses him mental questions and 
affirmations, seeking thus to bring con- 
victions to what they call the uncon- 
scious mind. By this method, which 
avoids all resistance on the part of the 
patient, they seek to impress the con- 
viction upon him that there is no such 
thing as sickness, and hence that he 
himself is not ill, and thus to lead him 
out of the mental state which is the 
cause of his apparent sickness. 
6i 



Ip012cblasl0 

How ought we to think of this system 
of healing? In what respect is it or- 
derly and right ? In what respect is it 
disorderly and to be avoided ? 

The mind-cure advocates are right in 
exalting the power of the soul over the 
body. They are right in affirming the 
substantial reality of spiritual things, 
and the relative unreality of natural 
things. It is a good thing, too, to ap- 
peal to mental forces to effect the re- 
moval of natural diseases ; and they are 
right in advocating a life of repose and 
of trust to the powers of the mind to 
remove their disabilities, and to bestow 
upon them all necessary power for main- 
taining health. There is certainly a 
field of vast and not yet realized useful- 
ness in the possible treatment of bodily 
ill through the mind. There must be 
orderly and effective ways of doing this, 
and so far as any one is acomplishing 
this, we must bid him God speed in his 
work. 

But my utterance of this " God speed " 
62 



/iBetapb^slcal Healing 



must not be misunderstood. It does 
not mean an endorsement of the doc- 
trines of metaphysical healers, nor of 
their practices. Their theories, like the 
theories of faith-cure practitioners, and 
of all other would-be teachers, must be 
subjected to the usual tests of doctrinal 
confirmation before acceptance. 

Again, besides repudiating all author- 
ity in their doctrines, we feel bound to 
point out certain errors and certain dan- 
gers which sometimes appear in mind- 
cure practices. In the first place, mind- 
cure advocates are very apt to deny the 
reality of natural things, with a kind of 
absoluteness entirely unwarranted by the 
doctrine of the supreme reality of spir- 
itual things. This last is true doctrine. 
Swedenborg very distinctly declares 
that " whatsoever in universal nature 
does not have correspondence with the 
spiritual world, has no existence, having 
no cause from which it can exist, and 
hence subsist " (Arcana Coelestia, 571 1). 
But even so, though these appearances 
63 



possess no reality whatever in them- 
selves, they do possess a kind of reality 
derived from the reality of their causes. 
If there be no such thing as sickness, 
there is at least such a thing as the 
mental state which produces the appear- 
ances of sickness, and sickness therefore 
possesses that mental state as a reality 
within it. This is true of all appear- 
ances ; and idealists, from the disciples 
of Berkeley down, have made a great 
mistake in denying all reality to appear- 
ances, because they do not possess that 
kind of reality which the natural man 
attaches to them. And sickness, though 
we are prepared to admit that in itself 
it has no power, and thus that it does 
not possess the kind of reality we at- 
tach to it, must be considered as having 
within it the reality of its spiritual 
cause. 

Secondly, mind-cure practitioners 
make a mistake in their absolute re- 
jection of natural curative agencies. 
For even though their doctrines be 
64 



/iBetapbssical Bealfn^ 



correct concerning the forces of the 
mind as the only proper instrumentality 
of cure, natural means, because of the 
faith people have in them, are thus 
practically among mental instrumental- 
ities, and have as valid a ground in ex- 
perience for a faith in them as the 
mind-cure system itself. Swedenborg, 
in treating of the relation of spiritual 
forces to disease, declares that though 
the causes of disease are in the spiri- 
tual world, the Divine Providence con- 
curs with natural means of healing 
(Arcana Coelestia, 5713). The fact is 
that our mind-cure friends are not quite 
consistent here, for the reiterated read- 
ing of a sentence which they practice 
for the purpose of inducing a certain 
mental state, is as truly a taking of 
medicine as would be swallowing a pel- 
let for the same purpose. 

In the third place, we note the danger 
arising from the too intense concentra- 
tion of the mind upon one limiting idea. 
Insane asylums have many monoma- 
65 



niacs who become thus diseased by con- 
fining themselves to the field of thought 
and life to be derived from one idea. 
When one becomes thus possessed he 
is mentally monstrous, just as the ab- 
normal enlargement of any individual 
organ of the body makes one monstrous 
physically. And then the appearance 
of cure which such concentration of 
mental application accomplishes, is cer- 
tainly magical ; that is, it is an appear- 
ance without a corresponding reality. 
It is like the effect of a local anesthetic, 
which relieves the pain but does not 
remove the disorder. I once held an 
interview with a physician who had had 
the care of a number of patients who 
had passed through the Christian Sci- 
ence experience. They had seemed for 
a time to have been cured, but the dis- 
ease, they discovered later, was still 
with them. It was working on in the 
system without declaring itself by means 
of the usual significant symptoms. The 
effect of Christian Science on these 
66 



/IBetapbi^sfcal Healing 



patients, this physician informed me, 
seemed to be merely to suppress symp- 
toms. The patients supposed that they 
were well because their pain was gone. 
And this recalls the case of the friend 
to whom I have already alluded, whom 
I look upon as a victim to this infatua- 
tion. The Christian Science healers 
were able to make her for a time un- 
conscious of the pain, but they could 
not affect the derangement. 

Another thing which we have at 
times found in the practice of this sys- 
tem of mental cure is that persons who 
appeared to be benefited by going to 
a metaphysical practitioner, and who 
seemed to be well, needed to keep uf*. 
the constant practice of communicating 
with the healer. An absence for a 
short time would bring about the lassi- 
tude and depression of the old ailment. 
I have known those who for year after 
year were obliged to keep up this asso- 
ciation with a curer in order to main- 
tain themselves in their cured condi- 
67 



dition. In my judgment, this is hyp- 
notic — an abnormal dependence upon 
another. If the system be orderly and 
right, the patient should be able sooner 
or later to walk alone — to receive from 
the divine source of life the strength 
wherewith he is held in health and 
strength. 

Again, I must speak a word as to the 
orderliness of what they call their " si- 
lent treatment." Assuming that it is 
possible to approach the mind of an- 
other by a method of thought directed 
towards him, and to get at his mind 
above his consciousness by certain 
thought-questions and affirmations ad- 
dressed to him, the question still re- 
mains as to^ whether it be right thus to 
influence him. It has seemed to me 
that only within a certain very limited 
field, if ever, and as a temporary expe- 
dient in an emergency, it may be allow- 
able, somewhat as it is allowable to 
carry a sick or a wounded man upon a 
stretcher, which it would be intolerable 

68 



^etapbsBlcal IHeaUng 



to do as a constant practice for well 
men. 

But " silent treatment " as a constant 
method for keeping each other well, is 
of very questionable orderliness in this 
respect, that it secures an entrance to 
the control of man's mental states by a 
secret, I am almost prepared to say, a 
clandestine method. It is a well-known 
principle of regeneration that it can 
only be accomplished as man in the 
conscious exercise of his faculties on 
the most external plane of his life ac- 
knowledges the commandments and 
obeys them. Man's external and con- 
scious life is the instrument of his indi- 
viduaHty and personality. Anything 
which is accomplished in him above his 
consciousness and without some cooper- 
ation of his conscious effort, is not he. 
Hence the Lord declares that He 
"stands at the door and knocks." He 
never steals his way into the mind by 
an inner door. Is it proper for one of 
us to insinuate himself into a chamber 
69 



of our neighbor's life into which the 
Lord would not intrude ? To formulate 
this question is to answer it. 

Nay, more ; is not the " silent treat- 
ment " open to the most serious abuses, 
since by that method the evil-disposed 
man may learn to creep into the un- 
conscious minds of his associates, and 
there argue with his unsuspecting vic- 
tims in favor of false doctrines and evil 
practices ? Is it not a two-edged sword 
that may cut in either direction, and 
that is as likely to cut the wrong way 
as the right ? 

I am happy to state in this connec- 
tion that I have known a number of 
metaphysical practitioners who never 
treat a person by " silent treatment " 
unless he invites it, and who seek by 
every means to lead a subject to treat 
himself, and thus to get as soon as pos- 
sible away from the leading strings of 
the healer. 

To sum up our judgment of the mind- 
cure, metaphysical healing, and all kin- 
70 



^etapbi^sical Mealing 



dred forms of the treatment of sick- 
ness, we may say that since there doubt- 
less is a vast power of the mind over 
the body which we may make use of for 
our welfare, we may surely take advan- 
tage of this power under the teachings 
of the New Church. The doctrines of 
these various healingisms are not to be 
trusted, and many of their practices are 
magical and dangerous. We may and 
should seek all orderly benefits which 
can be secured by the rule of the mind 
in the body, without resorting to the 
visionary doctrines, nor to the subtle 
practices of any of the schools of men- 
tal healing. 



71 



VII. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS TO 
ITS DOCTRINES 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is more 
prominent than any other form 
of mental heahng. It even sets out to 
be a church, professing to bring to man 
a new theology, a new philosophy, and 
a new priesthood. Its more enthusias- 
tic disciples look upon it as constituting 
a Second Coming of Christ. Beginning 
with a " Mother Church " in Boston, it 
is extending its organized societies all 
over this country, and I understand 
over other countries as well. It is erect- 
ing costly houses of worship. It is 
gathering great numbers into its fold. 
Some of our New-Church people have 
been attracted by it, and I am moved 
to give to it especial consideration. 
72 



Cbrf0tlan Science as to Ifts 2)octrlne0 



Regarded as an external movement, 
the special features of the Christian 
Science branch of mental healing are : 
(i) That a woman, possessing a striking 
and unique personality, stands at its 
head, and claims to be the original dis- 
coverer of Christian Science, and its 
only divinely authorized expounder ; (2) 
that the book she has written is held 
as the only authoritative text book of 
doctrine for the new system ; and (3) 
that the organized body whose head she 
is, is the only genuine and truly legit- 
imate body of believers in the new 
church of Christ. 

If now we read this divinely author- 
ized book, and seek to learn from it what 
constitutes its claim for supremacy, we 
are astonished at three unexpected fea- 
tures. The first is, that it is strangely 
lacking in rationality in substance, 
mode, and form. Logical sequence and 
order we look for in vain. It gives no 
satisfactory response to an intelligent 
and honest intellectual inquiry. 
f3 



lP012Cb(a0f0 

The second feature is the immanence 
of the author's personaUty. When I 
first read " Science and Health " I was 
more impressed by Mrs. Eddy's insist- 
ence upon her claim to be the first and 
only discoverer of the principle of Chris- 
tian Science, than I was at any efforts 
she made to explain or illustrate that 
principle. 

The third feature that will impress 
the wondering reader is the claim to 
dominion which is vested in Mrs. Eddy. 
This claim is more evident in the growth 
of the organized system than in the 
book. We find that this new religion, 
this professed Second Coming of Christ, 
this so-claimed advance upon all that 
has ever been in the world before, is a 
radical hierarchy. This dominion seems 
to be especially exercised in suppressing 
intellectual freedom among the disciples 
of the new faith. Those who conduct 
services in their worship are not allowed 
to deliver themselves of original preach- 
ing, or set forth a rational exposition of 
74 



Cbristian Science as to Ute Doctrines 



their tenets. The services consist of 
reading from the Scriptures, and from 
"Science and Health," with some sing- 
ing. In this respect this so-called 
"Church of Christ Scientist" is like 
the most external and the least spiritual 
of the Christian denominations, the 
Church of Rome. It is the dominion 
of a female Pope, without the reason 
for such rule as the successor of Peter 
can urge. 

If we advance to a deeper examina- 
tion of Christian Science, and inquire 
into its philosophy and theology, we 
shall find some striking peculiarities. I 
will pass by its extreme idealism, which 
it holds in common with all schools of 
mental healing, differing only in possi- 
bly being more radical than others, on 
which I have already commented, and 
call attention to its teachings concern- 
ing God and concerning the Word. The 
idea which any religion presents of God 
is its qualifying and characteristic fea- 
ture. "A correct idea of God," says 
75 



P012cb(a6i0 

Swedenborg, " is in the church like the 
sanctuary and altar in a temple, and like 
a crown upon the head and a sceptre 
in the hand of a king on his throne," 
Christian Science presents a conception 
of God, and here we should make our 
most earnest examination if we would 
get at exactly and truly what it is, and 
hence learn how we should think of it. 

We find in the Christian Science idea 
of God two conceptions, both utterly 
repellent to our New-Church teachings. 
The first is its pantheism. *' God is 
Mind ; and Mind is all." There is noth- 
ing in the universe excepting God. Thus 
Christian Science comes to us as an 
uncompromising monism. All the teach- 
ers of this modern movement delight 
in calling themselves monists. Not 
that monism in itself is necessarily a 
falsity, nor that all forms of dualism 
are true. There are great varieties in 
monism, and in dualism. In their radi- 
cal forms each is equally preposterous. 

In radical dualism we are taught that 
76 



Cbdatian Science as to 1Ft0 S)octrine0 



there are two opposing original and self- 
existent forces ; thus two Gods, a good 
God and a bad one. It had its origin 
in Persian mythology, and crept into 
the Christian Church in the form of a 
belief in a supreme devil. Its influence 
is also shown in the prominence and 
power of hell as they have been repre- 
sented in the church of the past. In 
the earlier forms of Christian theology 
Christ himself was taught to be a sac- 
rifice to the devil. I need not dwell 
upon this dualistic conception. It is 
inconceivable, and from the New Church 
is absolutely rejected. 

On the other hand, radical monism, 
pushed to its extreme, is uncompromi- 
sing pantheism, and if logically carried 
out to its bitter end (and its end is 
spiritually bitter), it teaches that every- 
thing is God, and makes reabsorption 
into deity man's final destiny. 

Now the Christian Science idea of 
God meets with the two unanswerable 
objections which set themselves against 
11 



P6^cbia0i6 

all radical monism : the first is raised 
by man's intelligence, and the second 
arises from the needs of man's love. 

The intellectual objection to monism 
is founded in the very structure of the 
mind, for some form and degree of dual- 
ism is a necessity of thought. We can- 
not form an idea without it. There 
cannot be a conception of an up, with- 
out a correlative conception of a down. 
We cannot think of an ego without 
some sort of a thought of a non-ego. 
God cannot be an object of any mental 
contemplation whatever, unless there be 
an idea of a non-God with which to 
compare and contrast it. Christian Sci- 
entists themselves while using the most 
extreme expressions of monistic affir- 
mations, talk of "mortal mind" and of 
the "errors " which spring from it, and 
thus show by their language the neces- 
sary presence of dualistic conceptions in 
their thinking. If monism were true 
in the extreme form in which it is taught 
in Christian Science doctrines, there 
7S 



Cbrtstian Science as to ITts Doctdnee 



could be no *' mortal mind " and no 
"error." In fact, Mrs, Eddy, in her 
little book on " Unity of God," does 
say that " strictly speaking there is no 
mortal mind." If there were no dualism 
in some form, degree, or appearance, 
there could be no idea of dualism, much 
less could there be any language ex- 
pressing it. 

Another intellectual difficulty with 
the Christian Science idea of God, is 
the impossibility under it of accounting 
for creation, and its disorders, suffer- 
ings, and sin — or for the appearance 
of these last if they be not real. If 
there be no such thing as disease and 
wrong, then why should they seem to 
be ? If they are the hallucinations of 
mortal mind, whence then came mortal 
mind ^ and how came what are mere 
hallucinations into positions of such 
prominence, and force, and life.'* And 
if " strictly speaking there is no mortal 
mind," how does it happen that this 
thing which " strictly speaking " is not, 
79 



lP0)3Cbla5fs 

appears to be so much in evidence? 
And what is creation, and what is the 
end, purpose, and idea of the whole ap- 
pearance of life and experience of mor- 
tal mind ? 

All these most logical questions, 
questions that can be rationally an- 
swered under a doctrine of dualism 
which makes them a factor in the oper- 
ation of the divine love and wisdom, 
are impossible of satisfactory solution 
under the Christian Science idea of 
God. 

A still more serious objection to the 
Christian Science monistic conception 
of God, is that under it we can find no 
satisfactory destiny for man. I know 
that the Christian Scientist feels strong 
at this point, and will be surprised at 
such an objection. Does not Christian 
Science teach that man is a veritable 
part of God ? he asks. And what can 
you desire better than that ? Have you 
a higher ambition than to be divine .-* 

But however satisfactory this may be 
80 



Cbrl6tlan Science ae to ITts Boctrines 



to the natural-minded man, to the spir- 
itual-minded man right here is the most 
fatal defect of the whole system. The 
very essence of divine love, that which 
impelled God to create, and that which 
thence constitutes the very substance 
of all genuinely heavenly love in what- 
ever degree or form manifested, is that 
it should love some one out of self. To 
find one's self inherently sufficient unto 
himself, is to the spiritual man death. 
To love others, and thus to have the 
ends and purposes of one's life in the 
neighbor, is the warp and woof of every 
love that is heavenly. It is the very 
end of creation. All true spiritual 
blessedness consists in a union in love 
with others. The differences in the 
nature of those who are the constituent 
parts of such a union are the very 
ground of the blessedness. 

This is illustrated in all forms of 

neighborly charity, and is in its height 

shown in the ultimate form of human 

personality which is dualistic, male and 

8i 



Ip6i5cbfa0i0 

female ; and whose very summit of 
blessedness is provided for in the heav- 
enly union of these differing parts — 
that is, in marriage. 

In his relation to God, therefore, man 
realizes the blessedness of his own life, 
not by finding himself to be in his own 
self-sufficiency God (God forbid !) but by 
conjunction with Him ; and God at the 
same time realizes the end of his love 
by union with man. It is because God 
and man are opposite to each other in 
their attributes, and not because man 
is inmostly divine, that their conjunc- 
tion is of such surpassing sweetness. 
That man was made " in the image " 
and " after the likeness " of God, means 
that to man was given by creation the 
capacity of receiving and responding 
to the love and the wisdom of God, and 
not that he should possess these things 
inherently in himself. Man in his like- 
ness to God may be compared to the 
glove which is made " in the image " 
and " after the likeness " of the hand, 

83 



Cbrigtfan Science as to ITte Doctrfnea 



but which accomplishes the purpose of 
its manufacture not by possessing in 
itself inherently the attributes of the 
hand, but by possessing the capacity of 
being conjoined to the hand, and in such 
conjunction, and by virtue of it, receiv- 
ing of the hand's warmth and life. 

Every fact of human experience, 
struggle, and achievement confirms this 
doctrine, and however delicious to self- 
love the thought of self-divinity may 
be, no one who has once tasted the 
depths of peace, joy, and innocence 
which flow into the soul from conjunc- 
tion with the Lord, will see in the Chris- 
tian Science monistic doctrine anything 
other than a device of the natural man 
— selfish, superficial, and unsatisfac- 
tory ; a fruit which is bound to turn 
to ashes. 

The second feature of the Christian 
Science idea of God is that He is to be 
thought of as Principle, not Person. 
There is an assumption of vast superi- 
ority on the part of those who use in- 
83 



definite terms in describing God, over 
those who think of Him as Man, and 
especially over those who address Him 
in terms of personal love. To call Him 
"Principle," and similar vague terms, 
and to renounce the very idea of think- 
ing of Him as a person, neither elevates 
nor enlarges the real idea one has of 
God. It gives indefiniteness, not great- 
ness, and substitutes the primary and 
disorganized conditions of matter as rep- 
resenting God in the place of the most 
highly-organized forms of life. Obscu- 
rity has often been mistaken for depth 
in literature, and vagueness has with 
equal frequency been mistaken for gran- 
deur in thought. However broad the 
idea which the word " Principle " may 
express, the conception which any one 
gets from the meaning of the word is 
necessarily as narrow as he ; and how- . 
ever limited the signification of the 
word person may seem, its meaning 
can be as grand under any individual's 
interpretation of it as his capacity is 
84 



Cbrfstfan Science as to fTts Doctrines 



grand. One's conception of God is 
limited by his capacity, and no indefi- 
niteness in the meaning of a word can 
remove that limitation. One's concep- 
tion of God may be made by any one 
as grand as is his capacity, and no lim- 
iting word need make it smaller. Here 
is a most momentous, but often forgot- 
ten or unrecognized principle. 

The question as to the form in which 
we should image God before us, whether 
as a Person or as Principle, is not de- 
termined by the question as to what 
He is in himself, for the form He is in 
himself is necessarily beyond all hu- 
man conception ; but it is determined 
by the question as to what form will 
give us the best idea we are capable of 
receiving. Every conception possible 
to us is necessarily infinitely below the 
reality, which transcends man's furthest 
imagination. What God is in himself, 
no one can know. This transcendent 
attribute of God is called in the lan- 
guage of the doctrine of the Trinity, 
85 



lpBl2cbfa6f6 

the Father. The question as to the 
form in which we should picture God 
is determined by the question as to what 
will convey to us the best thought we 
can receive — what is the truest idea 
we can get hold of ? This is called the 
Son ; this is the form in which we 
should think of God. 

Now God should be thought of as a 
Person not because such personality as 
we can think of in any way equals Him, 
but because that is the form in which 
we can attain unto the highest and tru- 
est conception of Him we are capable 
of receiving. The limitations of the 
personality in which we image Him, are 
ours not his. But in addition to this, 
in addition to the question of the high- 
est conception we can acquire of Him, 
in person only can we conceive of actual 
love — and God is love in its most ac- 
tual sense. When Mrs. Eddy reasoned 
that because God is love, therefore He 
is not in Person, she was reasoning back- 
wards. We should say, God is love and 
86 



Cbrfstian Science as to "ITts Doctrines 



therefore we should think of Him in 
Person. Love out of person, is unthink- 
able ; and those who imagine that they 
think of such love, if intelligently and 
honestly they analyze their idea, will 
find that they are not thinking of love, 
but of ether, or atmosphere, or the 
subtle force of atoms. 

But what has Christian Science to 
give us in the place of Person ? It 
gives us vagueness, emptiness, nothing- 
ness. God by these terms is associated 
with an atmosphere, or with ether, or 
with vibrations of heat and light, and 
thus with mechanical and inanimate 
things, instead of being associated with 
love and wisdom, and thus with the 
things of the mind which are the higher 
forms in which creation is revealed to 
us. To quote from my little work on 
"The Christ of God " : — 

" As we look out into the world we 
find creation exhibited in grades. Low- 
est is the mineral, above that is the 
vegetable, then the animal, and high 
87 



Ip012cbia0f6 

above the animal is man. God is infi- 
nitely above all. Where should we look 
logically for an adequate expression of 
Him other than in the highest of Hi^ 
creations, in man ? God cannot be 
most efficiently expressed in minerals, 
however great be their masses, since 
minerals are the very lowest things of 
nature ; nor in the vegetable, which is 
the very humblest expression of an ap- 
pearance of life ; nor yet in the mere 
animal, which possesses no moral life, 
and is inferior to man. If God would 
reveal Himself to us as a Being above 
us, He must construct the form in which 
He would make Himself known out of 
the very highest and the best of the 
things that He has made, and the very 
height of all that He has made, which 
has come within the field of our vision, 
is character. This is the surpassing 
pearl compared with which all other 
things sink into insignificance. Moun- 
tains and oceans, the forests and all the 
glories of vegetation, and all other works 
88 



Cbrf0tfan Science as to ITts Boctdnes 



of nature, are relatively as nothing when 
compared with the glory and the honor 
which pertain to heavenly character, the 
inestimable possible possession of a man. 
If God would with the greatest effi- 
ciency present Himself before our eyes, 
in the terms of human character He 
has the supreme language for His pur- 
pose." 

To think of God as embodied in a 
glorified Personality rather than as Prin- 
ciple, is to see Him in the highest things 
He has made rather than in the lowest ; 
it is looking to something above our- 
selves to image Him to us, rather than 
to something beneath us. 

Christian Science, in addition to giv- 
ing us a new idea of God, professes to 
give us an authoritative interpretation 
of the Scripture. It furnishes what it 
calls a "key." But I can hardly find 
language to describe the utter emptiness 
and meaninglessness of the Christian- 
Science interpretation of Scripture, if 
indeed it is sufficient in amount, definite 
8q 



pBi^cbiasfe 

enough in character, and rationally ad- 
equate to deserve even the name of an 
"interpretation." The whole "key" 
occupies three short chapters in " Sci- 
ence and Health," the Christian-Science 
authoritative text book. The first is 
entitled " Genesis," but it gives an exe- 
gesis of only four chapters of that book. 
The second is entitled "The Apoca- 
lypse," and after referring to a passage 
of the tenth chapter of the Book of 
Revelation, gives an exegesis of chapter 
twelve, and of a few verses of chapter 
twenty-one. The third chapter of this 
" key " is a glossary, containing, to use 
the author's own words, "a metaphys- 
ical interpretation of Bible terms, giving 
their spiritual sense, which is also their 
original meaning." We find in this 
glossary only about one hundred and 
thirty words defined. They are largely 
proper names. I have never been able 
to discover any law or principle by which 
the meanings are determined, and none 
appears to be claimed. Mrs. Eddy de- 
go 



CbdsUan Science as to f ts Doctrines 



clares that there is a spiritual sense to 
the Word and she not unfrequently uses 
language symbolically, but I have never 
found a reference to correspondence as 
a philosophical principle or even as a 
fact in the representation of spiritual 
things. Could anything from a New- 
Church point of view be more meagre 
and unsatisfactory ? 



91 



viii: 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS TO 
ITS RAPID GROWTH 

BUT if Christian Science is so un- 
satisfactory, if it is so wholly il- 
logical, irrational, fetishistic, and des- 
potic, how can we account for its 
rapid growth ? Do not these objections 
prove too much ? Are they not contra- 
dicted by the mere fact of the spread of 
this new denomination ? 

On the contrary, these features, while 
challenging our wonder, furnish a clue 
to the interpretation of this phenomenal 
extension of Christian Science. They 
show that Christian Science possesses 
three sources of enormous power with 
the natural man, and whatever pos- 
sesses power with that man, develops 
vigorously on earth. Its first source of 
92 



IRapfO (3rowtb of Cbtfatfan Science 



power is in the extreme naturalism of 
its doctrines. Above all things the nat- 
ural man abhors regeneration and re- 
demption. Every instinct of our self- 
love for the sake of its own preserva- 
tion would lead us to renounce the 
Scriptural and spiritual doctrine that we 
must be born again. How easy, how 
satisfactory, and thence how acceptable 
to the self-love man, to be told that he 
is already in himself pure and heavenly ; 
that he need but think himself into di- 
vinity. All this is on the plane of the 
natural conceptions, for there is in the 
Christian Science philosophy, no doc- 
trine of discrete, or laminated, degrees 
to save one from the indiscriminate 
mingling of celestial and terrestrial 
things. Under these naturalistic teach- 
ings man becomes like Pharaoh's baker. 
While like all men he carries three bas- 
kets above his head with bread, for 
above every man there are the three 
heavens with their food for the soul, 
they are full of holes, and celestial, spir- 

93 



itual, and natural things are indiscrimi- 
nately mingled together. And where 
they are not kept distinct from each 
other, the spiritual man dies. The 
baker loses his head.* Like the doc- 

*See marginal reading of Gen. xi. i6, and read 
"Arcana Coelestia," 5145, from which I quote the 
following : " Man's interiors are distinguished into 
three degrees, and in each degree the interiors are 
terminated, and by termination separated from the 
lower degree ; thus from the inmost to the outmost. 
.. . These degrees in man are most distinct. 
Thence it is that man, as to his interiors, if he 
lives in good, is heaven in least form, or that his 
interiors correspond to the three heavens ; and 
thence it is that man after death can, if he has 
lived a life of charity and love, be transferred even 
into the third heaven. But that he may be such, 
it is necessary that all the degrees in him should be 
well terminated, and thus by means of terminations 
be distinct from one another ; and when they are 
terminated or by means of terminations are made 
distinct from one another, every degree is then a 
plane in which the good which flows in from the 
Lord rests, and where it is received. Without 
these degrees as planes, good is not received, but 
flows through as through a sieve, or perforated 
basket, even to the sensual ; and then, not being 
directed to anything on its way, it is changed into 
what is filthy, which appears to those who are 
in it as good, namely, into the enjoyment of the 
love of self and of the world." 

94 



IRaplD (Srowtb of Cbrfstian Science 



trine of faith alone in the Old Church, 
of which doctrine this is a variety, the 
Christian Science teaching of self-good- 
ness is an alluring fantasy. 

The second great source of power 
which Christion Science possesses with 
the natural man, is from the essential 
limitation of its idea. I have already 
considered the almost boundless con- 
trol which the mind exercises over the 
body from concentration, and I again 
call it to mind because with the Chris- 
tian Science branch of mental-healing 
it is exceptionally prominent. The en- 
tire philosophy and religion of Christian 
Science, with all its doctrines, precepts, 
and practices, may be epitomized in the 
one, simple statement of faith contained 
in the three short words : I am God. 
It is true that the Christian Scientist 
might not express himself so baldly as 
this, but this affirmation is logically in- 
volved in the Christian Science doctrine 
concerning man — when that doctrine 
is affirmed as it is in Christian Science 
95 



without reference to man's choice of 
divine hfe, and thus without refer- 
ence to man's permitting himself to 
be regenerated and in this way attain- 
ing unto a new birth — that man is 
God's thought and thus divine. The 
total elimination of the doctrine so 
clearly and so forcibly set forth by the 
Lord in John, that man must be born 
again, or from above, and that he in this 
way becomes a son of God, necessarily 
mvolves the doctrine of self-deification. 
Now this divine teaching that man must 
be born again, is absolutely ignored in 
Christian Science, whence it is that a 
confirmed belief in the inherent divin- 
ity of one's own self-life constitutes the 
whole system in a nut-shell. So plain, 
so condensed, so attractive to one's 
self ! could we imagine a more concen- 
trated morsel of delicious sweetness for 
the palate of the natural man } 

In their teachings concerning man in 
his relation to God, the New Church 
and Christian Science are in exactly 
96 



IHapiD Growth of Cbrlstian Science 



opposite positions. The New Church 
says : Man as to his self-hood, that is, 
as to the Ufe that is distinctively his 
own, is absolutely opposite to the Lord, 
but capable by regeneration of becom- 
ing so conjoined to Him, as to receive 
from Him a divine self-hood, that is, to 
perceive in himself the Lord's life as 
his own. But Christian Science teaches 
the inherent divinity of man, which 
logically ends in individual reabsorption 
into divinity. The New Church in- 
volves as its teaching concerning man's 
destiny the eternal progression of the 
individual into an ever more conscious 
reception of the divine life, a progres- 
sion in which every step forward makes 
man ever more alive to the transcend- 
ent fact that the love and the wisdom 
by which he is actuated, so far as they 
are heavenly, are not from self ; and at 
the same time endows him with an ever 
more clear and more delightful percep- 
tion of the truth, that all this blessed- 
ness is from the Lord. The surpassing 
97 



sweetness of the conjunction of God 
and man arises from the very fact that 
man is not God. By this his individu- 
aUty is continually more distinctly em- 
phasized at the very moment that his 
conjunction with God and his identifi- 
cation with all men in love is perfected. 
God and man complete each other. 
To make man inherently God, is to de- 
stroy this complementalness and oblit- 
erate man altogether. The Christian 
Science conception involves this efface- 
ment of man, and the rational man won- 
ders how under its teachings mortal 
mind could ever have come into even 
the appearance of existing. 

The third source of the power which 
Christian Science exercises over the 
natural man, is from the subjection of 
the individual freedom of its members 
to a form of socialistic hypnotism. 
Hypnotism is a word by which is des- 
ignated that influence of man over man 
v/hich is made possible by the subject's 
ceasing to exercise his intelligence, and 
98 



1Rapl& Growtb of Cbdstlan Science 



by his yielding his will. Man's intelli- 
gence is a divinely provided sentinel, 
given for the purpose of warning him 
against those who would improperly in- 
trude themselves upon him, and of dri- 
ving them off. Let any man lay this 
aside, accept some fetich (such as a 
book, a formula of words, an institution, 
or a personality), and yield to the stupe- 
fying doctrine that in some mystic or- 
acle is vested an authorized dominion, 
and we have all the conditions which 
make hypnotism possible. But how can 
hypnotism extend to so many .? Hyp- 
notic control is generally supposed to be 
individualistic — the government which 
one man sometimes attains over an- 
other. 

On the contrary, hypnotism exhibits 
its most virulent nature in its applica- 
tion to social conditions. In its most 
powerful form it is communal, and its 
influence is cumulative as it extends 
from man to man. At such times hyp- 
notism is an efficient instrumentality 
99 



f>6T2Cbla5l6 

for spreading infectious mental maladies 
which, under its sway, break out in a 
community. When this takes place it 
requires an especial clearness of vision 
and strength of will to enable the in- 
dividual to resist it. The social man is 
quite as subject to epidemic mental dis- 
eases, as he is to physical contagions. 
The historical instance of that kind 
which, to my mind, best illustrates the 
present phenomenon, is the wave of re- 
vivalism which swept over this country 
in the forties and fifties of this century. 
In more tragic form the Salem witch- 
craft madness was such an epidemic. 
The principle is illustrated by the 
possibility of stampeding unthinking 
crowds by shrewd managers. Hence, 
too, the demoralization of armies under 
some groundless fear which propagates 
itself from one to another as though it 
were an epidemic. The rushing through 
of improper measures in popular legisla- 
tive assemblies, is an illustration of so- 
cial hypnotism. The insanities of soci- 

lOO 



IRapiD (Browtb of Cbrlstian Science 



ety fashions often manifest in grotesque 
form this same principle. The skating- 
rink craze, which at one time inundated 
us with an almost resistless flood, though 
something to smile at, was a remarkable 
exhibition of the susceptibility of our 
social human nature to hypnotic influ- 
ence. 

All the conditions of the Christian 
Science infatuation proclaim it to be a 
movement of this kind. It is an epi- 
demic of hypnotic hallucination ; an as- 
tounding example of the vast power 
which comes to a large company of men 
and women whose freedom of intellec- 
tual action is laid aside, and whose 
mental and affectional life are concen- 
trated on a simple, stupefying concep- 
tion. 

There is surely an influx of a peculiar 
kind and degree at this moment flowing 
in upon the minds of men from the 
lower regions. There is a great wind 
in the spiritual world, and it is carrying 
many along with it. It is necessary 



under the circumstances that those 
whose feet are planted upon a rock of 
rational and scriptural conviction, should 
stand firm, that they be not swept into 
the vortex. 






IX. 

THE NEW-CHURCH DOC- 
TRINE OF MIND-CURE 

HAVING thus far discussed the 
various sects in mental healing, 
and formed a judgment concerning 
them, we come to the question of the 
teachings of the New Church. What 
have they to tell us concerning the heal- 
ing of the body through the soul ? 

Of course the heavenly doctrines 
having been committed to writing over 
a century ago, do not specifically treat 
of the metaphysical healing of to-day. 
But their instructions concerning the 
relations of soul and body, and espe- 
cially concerning those of the spiritual 
and natural worlds, are so full and so 
luminous that they anticipate in many 
particulars some of the most recent so- 
103 



Ip0^c blasts 

called modern discoveries. This is es- 
pecially true of the mental healing 
which is so conspicuously showing it-- 
self to-day. If Swedenborg had known 
beforehand what was coming, he could 
scarcely have better supplied us with 
the means of coping with these things 
than he has. 

I divide the teachings of the New 
Church on this subject into two portions. 
The first concerns the principles of 
what we might, call properly mind-cure, 
or mental healing ; and the second 
teaches that higher and more interior 
doctrine concerning the healing of the 
body through the soul, to which I have 
already alluded. This second doctrine 
is so pure, so rational, and so in har- 
mony with an enlightened faith and life, 
that I do not know of any other teach- 
ing that can be compared with it. 

Beginning with the doctrines of the 
New Church on what we might call the 
subject of mental healing, we may sum 
them up under three heads : — 
104 



IRcwsCburcb Boctrine of /iMnds^Cure 



First, all diseases have their origin in 
the spiritual world, and thus spring from 
spiritual causes. In this respect our 
doctrine seems at first sight to resemble 
the mental-healing principle that sick- 
ness is derived from the states of the 
mind. But our New-Church doctrine 
goes further than to tell us of the mere 
fact of such origin. It brings out the 
principle which underlies this truth, de- 
claring that diseases are under the law 
of correspondence. This is a doctrine 
of vast moment, as it makes definite the 
general teaching that the cause is in the 
spiritual world. '♦ All diseases with 
man," we read, " have correspondence 
with the spiritual world ; for whatsoever 
in universal nature does not have corre- 
spondence with the spiritual world, has 
no existence, having no cause from 
which it can exist, and hence subsist. 
The things of nature are nothing but 
effects, whose causes are in the spiritual 
world" (Arcana Ccelestia, 571 1). This 
correspondence of diseases is not with 
105 



heaven, it should be understood. "Dis- 
eases have not correspondence with 
heaven, which is the Maximus Hoyno^ 
but with those who are in the opposite, 
thus with those who are in the hells." 
{Ibid.y 5712.) 

This law of correspondence, which is 
a characteristic feature of the New 
Church, especially as applied to this 
subject, is brought out in some detail. 
Here are passages elaborating this prin- 
ciple : — 

"Every disease corresponds to its 
own evil. This is because the all of 
the life of man is from the spiritual 
world. Wherefore if his spiritual life 
sickens, evil is thence derived into the 
natural life, and becomes a disease 
there." {Ibid., 8364.) 

" Diseases correspond to the lusts and 
passions of the mind ; these also are 
the origins of diseases. For the origins 
of diseases are . . . also envyings, 
hatreds, revenges, lasciviousness, and 
the like, which destroy the interiors of 
106 



•fflew*Cburcb 2)octrfne of /lRfn&s=Cucc 



man, and when these are destroyed, the 
exteriors suffer and draw man into dis- 
ease, and thus into death." {Ibid. 5712.) 

"All the internals induce diseases, 
but with a difference, because all the 
hells are in the lusts and concupiscences 
of evil, consequently contrary to the 
things which are of heaven ; therefore 
they act upon man from what is oppo- 
site : heaven, which is the Grand Man, 
keeps all things in connection and 
safety ; hell, as being in the opposite, 
destroys and rends all things . asunder ; 
consequently if the infernals are ap- 
plied they induce diseases, and at length 
death. But they are not permitted to 
flow in so far as into the solid parts of 
the body, or into the parts which con- 
stitute the viscera, organs, and mem- 
bers of man, but only into the lusts 
and falsities — only when a man falls 
into disease, they then flow into such 
unclean things as belong to the disease." 
{Ibid., 5713.) 

" There appeared a large quadrangu- 
107 



lar aperture. . . Hence there exhaled a 
troublesome heat, which was collected 
from various hells, arising from lusts 
of various kinds, as from haughtiness, 
lasciviousness, adulteries, hatreds, re- 
venges, quarrels, and fightings : such in 
the hells was the source of that heat 
which exhaled. When this heat acted 
upon my body, it instantly induced dis- 
ease like that of a burning fever; but 
when it ceased to flow in, the disease 
instantly ceased. When a man falls into 
such disease, which he has contracted 
from his life, instantly an unclean sphere 
corresponding to the disease adjoins 
itself, and is present as the fomenting 
cause." {Ibid., 5715.) 

" The ulcers appertaining to man in 
his body correspond to the defiled things 
which are from evils, and pustules to 
blasphemies ; and they would also be in 
every evil man, unless he, so long as he 
is in the world, was in a state of receiv- 
ing the good and truth of faith ; it is 
for the sake of that state that the Lord 
108 



H^ewsCburcb 5)octrfne of /IRin^^Cure 



prevents such things bursting forth from 
evils." {Ibid., 7524.) 

Notice how much deeper this goes 
than does the general and undefined 
doctrine that diseases have their origin 
in the errors of man's mind. It teaches 
us that there is a law applying to the 
relations of mental and material things 
from which we learn that diseases are 
not mere misconceptions of man's 
thought-life, but are the expressions in 
the body of the disorderly states of the 
soul. 

Secondly, the New-Church doctrines 
teach that the removal of the spiritual 
cause of a disease will cure the disease. 
It was when writing of disease as being 
the effect of causes in the spiritual 
world, that Swedenborg says : " On 
the cessation of the cause, the effect 
ceases." Much more explicit are the 
following passages from the "■ Arcana " 
and from the " Minor Spiritual Diary," 
in which it is to be especially noted that 
if the spiritual causes producing the 
109 



p3SCbia0t6 

disease be removed, the diseases them- 
selves instantly disappear. 

''That I might know for certain that 
this is the case, there were spirits from 
several hells present with me, who com- 
municated the sphere of the exhalations 
thence arising, and as that sphere was 
permitted to act upon the solid parts of 
the body, I was seized with heaviness 
and pain, and even with disease corre- 
sponding thereto, which ceased in a 
moment, as those spirits were expelled : 
and lest any room should be left for 
doubt, this was repeated very many 
times." (Arcana, 5715.) 

*' As often as diseases exist with man, 
spirits which correspond to the disease 
come to him. . . . Such spirits apply 
themselves to the region where the dis- 
ease is, and by their presence aggravate 
it. If such spirits are removed by the 
Lord, man is immediately restored to 
health, . . . But since the generality 
of men do not believe that spirits are 
about us, all these things are attributed 



1Rew=Gburcb Boctrine of ^InO^Cure 



to natural causes." (Minor Diary, 4648- 
4650.) 

Thirdly, our doctrines teach that 
natural means are not, therefore, una- 
vailable. " Nevertheless," says Swe- 
denborg, after pointing out that the 
removal of the spiritual cause of a dis- 
ease would remove the disease itself, 
" this is no hindrance to a man's being 
healed naturally, for the divine provi- 
dence concurs with such means of heal- 
ing " (Arcana, 5713). The usefulness 
of natural means is not necessarily in- 
consistent with the sole efficiency of 
spiritual instrumentalities, because nat- 
ural means may often be resolved into 
incitors of mental states. I notice that 
Wood, and other advocates of mental 
healing, prescribe various external acts, 
and the reading and repeating of certain 
phrases, for the incitement of concen- 
tration of the mind. May not a medi- 
cine, believed in by the patient, be a 
useful means to bring the required heal- 
ing state of the mind I 

HI 



Ipsi2cbfa0l3 

In the above teachings we have a 
mind-cure doctrine in the New Church in 
simple, logical, rational, consistent, and 
practical form. All diseases are from the 
spiritual world under the law of corre- 
spondence. The removal of the spiritual 
cause removes the disease, but this does 
not hinder man's being treated naturally, 
for " the divine providence concurs with 
such means of healing." Notice that the 
use of natural means is not sanctioned 
because of a faith in the force of mere 
natural instrumentalities, but because 
"the divine providence concurs with" it. 

There is surely a practical application 
of these New-Church principles of heal- 
ing of the body. There must be some 
way of removing the spiritual cause of 
a disease for the cure of the disease. 
But for the moment I pass that by, that 
we may consider next the characteristic 
and interior doctrine concerning the 
healing of the body through the soul 
which is contained only in the truths of 
the New Jerusalem. 



1 



X. 

HEALTH THROUGH RIGHT- 
EOUS LIVING 

WE now come to the supreme doc- 
trine of the healing of the body 
through the soul. It is more than mind- 
cure, or any mere metaphysical heal- 
ing. It accomplishes its effects through 
something far higher and better than 
the creative power of thought, beautiful 
as that is. It is the purifying and heal- 
ing virtue which flows into the body 
from one's spiritual life ; and since the 
Lord in man is the very beginning and 
ending of the spiritual life, the heal- 
ing I refer to is from the Lord. For 
we are taught in our doctrines that the 
most interior states of the soul as to 
love and as to wisdom, are the most 
1=^3 



efficient instrumentality for qualifying 
and determining the conditions of the 
body as to health and disease. It should 
not be called mind-cure, but spiritual 
character-cure. It is not one's thought- 
life that accomplishes the purpose, it is 
his life as to righteousness. 

This is a momentous teaching, clearly 
and forcibly laid down in the writings 
of the church, yet generally passed 
over by the reader with little apprecia- 
tion of its significance. According to 
our doctrines, man's body is a form cor- 
responding to the understanding and 
the will, and thence the interiors and 
the exteriors of the mind act as one 
with the interiors and the exteriors of 
the body. " As man," we read, '' has 
the Lord constantly before his eyes, 
which is the case if he is in love and 
wisdom, he then looks to Jiim not only 
with his eyes and face, but also with 
his whole mind and his whole heart, 
and at the same time with all things of 
the body " (Divine Love and Wisdom, 
U4 



Hcaltb G^brougb 1Rfabteou6 %ivir\Q 



136, 137). It is still further stated in 
our doctrines that " it is indeed acknowl- 
edged that a man is such as his reign- 
ing love is, yet only such in mind and 
disposition, but not such in body, thus 
not wholly such. But it has been made 
known to me from much experience in 
the spiritual world, that from head to 
foot, that is, from the primes in the 
head to the ultimates in the body, a 
man is such as his love is " (Md, 369). 
Hence the condition of the body must 
be controlled by the soul. 

" If man had lived the life of good, 
his interiors would be open to heaven, 
and through heaven to the Lord : thus 
also the smallest and invisible vessels 
(it is allowable to call the lineaments of 
the first stamina vessels by reason of 
correspondence) would be open also, 
and hence the man would be without 
disease, and would only decrease to ul- 
timate old age, until he became alto- 
gether an infant, but a wise one ; and 
when in such case the body could no 
115 



Ipsscbia6i6 

longer minister to its internal man, or 
spirit, he would pass without disease 
out of his terrestrial body, into a body 
such as the angels have, thus out of the 
world immediately into heaven." (Ar- 
cana Coelestia, 5726.) 

" With him who is spiritual, the purer 
blood, which is called by some the ani- 
mal spirit, is that which is purified ; and 
it is so far purified as man is in the 
marriage of love and wisdom. It is this 
purer blood which most nearly corre- 
sponds to that marriage, and because 
this blood flows into the blood of the 
body, it follows that the latter bipod is 
also purified by means of it. It is the 
contrary with those with whom love is 
defiled in the understanding. But, as 
was said, no one can explore this 
through any experiment on the blood, 
but he may explore it from the affec- 
tions of love, since these correspond to 
the blood." (Divine Love and Wisdom, 

423.) 

The completeness of the healing 

116 



IKealtb C:brougb IRigbteous Xfving 



which is described in these teachings, 
that is, its interiority, is a feature to be 
noted. It is from centre to circumfer- 
ence. The very purity of the blood is 
determined by the marriage of love and 
wisdom in the soul, that is, by man's 
regeneration. This is no mere suppres- 
sion of symptoms. It is the eradica- 
tion of the very essence of the disease 
— of that quality in man's blood which 
makes him susceptible to it. 

It is to be noticed in this doctrine 
that the health of the body is not the 
end sought. It is simply the normal 
expression of the regenerating man's 
spiritual state. The states of man's 
body are representative of the states of 
his soul. To seek bodily health for itself, 
that is, for the mere physical and selfish 
comfort of it, is like devoting one's self 
to attaining the external appearances, or 
insignia, of a condition, without refer- 
ence to the thing itself which these 
signs represent. It may be aptly com- 
pared with the contentment with the 
117 



outer show of royalty without its author- 
ity, which a claimant to the throne 
might possess. Man's body is the very 
outside of his life, and its health is the 
orderly expression of the health of the 
inner life, and in the aims and purposes 
of life, we should so esteem it. Spir- 
itual health, or righteousness, is the real 
thing to be prized, sought, and attained, 
and then, our doctrines tell us, our phys- 
ical well-being will follow. 

But is not this doctrine contrary to 
experience .«* the doubter asks. Who 
ever heard of any one who was in good 
health because of his righteousness ? 

Of course we do not hear of such 
cases, since those who are in good 
health from righteousness are uncon- 
scious of the cause of their being well, 
and would not dream of setting up the 
claim that it is from their righteousness. 
Those who, from this cause, are well, 
are absorbed in the conscientious fulfil- 
ment of the duties of their callings ; 
they are shunning their evils as sins ; 



Bealtb C^brougb IRigbteous Xiving 



they are leading lives of usefulness and 
devotion. Their righteousness is some- 
thing they do not think of, or if atten- 
tion be called to it, they disavow its 
being theirs. It is the Lord's, they 
say. They are simply doing their duty. 
Those whose blood is pure, and whose 
bodies are in good health because they 
live in the Lord, do not pose before 
the world as examples of righteousness 
healing; they hang no banners to the 
breeze to announce themselves. They 
are simply humble followers of the 
Lord. Of course we do not know, and 
least of all do the righteous people who 
are well from the marriage of love and 
wisdom in their souls themselves know, 
who are the ones who are in physical 
health from righteous living. But 
though we know them not, have we not 
reason to think that we have met them .-* 
Quiet, faithful, self-forgetful, and help- 
ful, they are in good health as a matter 
of course. They merely are well, and 
who is there to let the world know that 
119 



p012Cbiasi0 

their outward health is an expression of 
their inward righteousness ? 

Are the righteous always well, then ? 
and can we judge of the state of one's 
soul by the condition of his body ? 

Certainly not. Environment, hered- 
ity, misapprehensions on his own part, 
and other causes, may interfere with a 
righteous man's appearance of health, 
though he be in health as to his soul ; 
and there may be a seeming physical 
health and strength with an unright- 
eous man. Upon the judgment of per- 
sonal character from physical condition 
we are not warranted in entering. 

In addition to this it should be re- 
membered that we are in a world whose 
purpose is to give man an opportunity 
for being reformed and regenerated. 
We are in the process. We cannot 
judge of the final quality of anything 
while it is being made — man's charac- 
ter the least of all. And the states of 
righteousness among men are in a very 
mixed condition. Mankind is not di- 



Healtb tTbrougb IRigbteous Xivfng 

vided into two distinct classes, the 
righteous and the unrighteous. The 
unrighteous, so called, are not to be 
looked upon as wholly such ; nor should 
the so-called righteous be thought of as 
having completed their course of spiri- 
tual purification. There may be in the 
character which we regard as most 
heavenly, elements of self-thought and 
self-life which afford a lodgment for the 
presence of ill-health. The conditions 
involved are too complicated to warrant 
us in basing a judgment of one's char- 
acter as to righteousness upon the state 
of his body. 

The recognition of the truth that 
man's body is not necessarily in this 
world a reliable representative of the 
conditions of his soul, is thus set forth 
in '' Heaven and Hell " : — 

"Though all things of man, as to 
body, correspond to all thmgs of heaven, 
still man is not an image of heaven as 
to e;'cternal form, but as to the internal 
form ; for the interiors of man receive 



heaven, and his exteriors receive the 
world. . . . For external beauty, which 
is of the body, derives its cause from 
the parents and from formation in the 
womb, and afterwards is preserved by 
a common influx from the world ; hence 
it is that the form of the natural man 
differs very much from the form of his 
spiritual man. Sometimes it has been 
shown what the spirit of man was in 
form, and it was seen that in some who 
were beautiful and handsome in the 
face, it was deformed, black, and mon- 
strous, so that you would call it an im- 
age of hell, not of heaven ; but in some 
who were not beautiful, that it was well 
formed, fair, and angelic." (99.) 

And yet, though all this is true, and 
most desirably true, for it would inter- 
fere fatally with our freedom, and thus 
with our regeneration, if we were to 
judge of each other's spiritual character 
from our health, the great law remains 
that the most interior, the most desir- 
able, and the most efficient source of 



Mealtb G^brougb IRi^bteous Xlvlng 



physical health from spiritual instru- 
mentalities is spiritual character. This 
is a very fountain of health, a pool of 
Bethesda in the soul, into whose waters, 
after it has been stirred by the angel of 
divine truth, each may enter for the 
healing of every infirmity. 



123 



XI. 

THE RIGHT APPLICATION OF 
MENTAL HEALING 

AND now for the application of these 
principles. The doctrines of the 
New Church on this subject are not 
solely matters of theory ; they are for 
real life. They are not intended for 
mere talk ; they are for practice. They 
are not alone for study ; they are also 
and especially for appHcation. And I 
know of no teachings that are more 
easily made use of than the ones I have 
been presenting from the writings of the 
New Church. 

And of this I am assured, that wher- 
ever they are realized in the life of any 
one, health will surely follow. There 
are no other mental healing principles 
more practically efficient than these. 
124 



Zhc IRlgbt Application of Cental Beallng 



How can they become so incarnated in 
us as to accomplish this so transcend- 
ent a purpose ? 

Right at the start I emphasize with 
great earnestness the distinction be- 
tween what has very appropriately been 
called mind-cure, and the higher doc- 
trine, which I have styled righteous- 
living cure. The former may be re- 
garded as a kind of medical treatment. 
While of a higher purity and more de- 
sirable in practice than the taking of 
drugs, whether in appreciable or infini- 
tesimal doses, it belongs to the same 
plane of thought and application. The 
practice of this psychotherapeutics 
does not concern itself with religious 
doctrine — it is external to all that. It 
is simply clearing the mind of all those 
states which obstruct the inflow of 
health-giving forces from the spiritual 
world. It may be rightly thought of 
as one of the schools of the healing art. 
It operates efficiently without reference 
to the spiritual faith or life of the sub- 
125 



Psi2cbta0l6 



ject, and regards those states of the 
mind which affect the operation of what 
is known as the unconscious functions 
of the body. 

The principle I refer to is recognized 
by intelligent physicians of whatever 
system of practice as a source of phys- 
ical influence to be appealed to. In this 
connection I call attention to a recent 
article on this phase of our subject with 
which I have been much delighted. It 
is from Dr. George B. Gorham in The 
Outlooky and is entitled "The Physio- 
logical Effect of Faith." In it it is 
clearly and forcibly set forth that the 
element of faith as a therapeutic agent 
should be recognized by physicians, and 
indeed is so recognized. In this article 
Dr. Gorham shows that many states of 
the mind, among the most efficient of 
which he places faith, affect very power- 
fully the functional activities of the 
unconscious processes of the body. The 
measure of the power of a faith to ac- 
compUsh these effects is not from its 
126 



^be IRigbt Bppltcatfon of /IBental Mealing 



reasonableness, nor from the power of 
the object of the faith, but from its own 
depth. The faith that amounts to what 
Dr. Gorham calls " a deep, unmistakable 
expectancy," accomplishes the desired 
effect. It is here that he who would 
enjoy health of body from the soul, 
should begin. He should cultivate this 
external health-faith, which he can do 
whatever be his religious convictions, 
not by seeking new and fantastic meta- 
physical doctrines, but by simply seek- 
ing an enlightened application of the 
doctrines which teach us concerning the 
power of the mind over the body, an 
application which will make man's nat- 
ural life respond freely to the health- 
giving influxes from the spiritual world. 
What this means practically is the sub- 
ject for our first consideration. 

But to descend into details, the mind- 
cure part of our doctrines may be 
summed up in this one sentence : All 
diseases are from the spiritual world 
under the law of correspondences, and 
127 



if their spiritual causes are removed, 
the diseases will disappear. This simple 
but comprehensive formulation of doc- 
trine is full of practical applications. 

I. Since the causes of diseases are 
in the spiritual world, and operate under 
the law of correspondences, and in- 
deed are evils of that world, the dis- 
eases are not to be dreaded for what 
they are in themselves. The actual 
calamity of illness is in the spiritual 
evil it externally represents. It is sel- 
fishness, which is the veritable thing to 
be dreaded. It is lust, jealousy, unkind 
thoughts, hatreds, and enmities that are 
the real ill-health, and to get rid of the 
uncomfortable representatives of these 
ills of the spirit (and such representa- 
tives are all that the sicknesses of the 
body are), is not in any true way to get 
rid of the real illness. This should be 
in our thought if we would, in the line 
of the New-Church teachings and life, 
get well. Nor is physical health in itself 
the end we should seek. It is the spir- 

138 



trbe IRlQbt Application of yilbental Mealing 



itual thing represented by health that 
is to be sought. Health in this respect 
may be aptly compared with happiness. 
Pursue happiness directly, and it eludes 
you. But laying aside your thought of 
it, devote yourself to a life of useful- 
ness and truth, and happiness will fol- 
low you and nestle in your heart. In 
like manner, health directly pursued, 
may escape us. But he who conforms 
to the spiritual principles which pro- 
duce health, shall have it. For this 
reason, health should not, as a thing in 
itself, be placed before any one as the 
end of life. Aiming at it as an end is 
forlorn indeed ! He who forgets the 
question of health and searches for 
truth and its realization in life, is bound 
to be well. To express this first prin- 
ciple of application in other language, 
I would say : Do not humiliate your 
spiritual life to the position of means, 
and exalt your physical health to the 
position of end in your life's endeavors. 
Many healers seem to invert the con- 
129 



stituents of life, making the welfare of 
the body first, and the well-being of the 
spirit a mere instrument of this. Their 
religion becomes to them a medicine, 
or tonic, for the body. They would 
avoid unkind feelings, or anger, not be- 
cause they are wrong, but because dis- 
agreeable physical effects follow ; and 
would shun uncleanness of thought not 
because of its uncleanness, but because 
of its unhealthy physical influence. 
All this is turning things upside down. 
Spiritual life should be sought for its 
own glorious self, while physical health 
we look for as a matter of necessary 
sequence. 

2. Much less should we think of dis- 
eases as divine creations. They are 
not from the Lord except in the sense 
that hell and evil, as being permitted 
by Him, are in that negative way from 
Him. Disease is no more from the 
Lord than sin is from the Lord. We 
must not think of our sickness as angels 
from the heavenly Father, come to us 
130 



Zbc IRlQbt Bpplfcatlon of Cental Bealina 



in this guise to teach us patience, and 
to cultivate in us the heavenly virtues. 
Sickness is, in a nearer or more remote 
degree, the offspring of sin, the corre- 
spondent of evil, and is begotten of the 
devil. Diseases of the body are ma- 
terial images of selfishness and sin. 
They are the concrete forms of our 
lusts. These mental things are their 
origin and their source of continuance ; 
and to these spiritual sources of power, 
we shall learn later on, should we look 
for their cure. Although we do not 
pronounce him who is ill a sinner be- 
cause of his illness, nor judge of him 
who is well by any similar logic, it is 
true as a general doctrine that ill-health 
is from evil and wrong, and must be so 
thought of. He who inherits a diseased 
body, while he cannot condemn himself 
for that which he could not help, still 
should regard the sickness of his body 
just as he regards the perversities of 
his moral disposition inherited from his 
parents, for which also he would not be 
131 



blamable. That sickness is permitted 
for a wise purpose we are prepared to 
admit ; but so, too, are immoralities and 
all natural evils. We must, therefore, 
in our thoughts rise above the concep- 
tion that our diseases are in any way 
produced by the Lord. They are not 
His choice. They are not the expres- 
sions of His divine order. They are 
not his direct messengers. They arc 
from wickedness. We should look upon 
our sicknesses as evidences of the pres- 
ence of evil spirits ; and we should so 
think of them and so live in reference 
to them that those spirits may find noth- 
ing in us to cling to ; and from our 
changed spiritual position towards them 
we may be healed. 

3. Since sickness is not from God it 
is necessary that we make our faith in 
that truth practical by renouncing in 
external word and deed our belief in 
sickness as a power in itself. This re- 
nunciation must show itself in the very 
words of our lips. To begin at the 
132 



^be TRlgbt Application ot Cental Mealfns 



foundation we should remember that 
making one's ailments prominent in his 
thoughts and conversation is injurious 
to the health-giving power of spiritual 
forces. If in your conversation you 
treat the sicknesses with which you are 
afflicted as though they were really 
enemies of your body, possessing an act- 
ual self-existent nature, you thereby 
give them a hold upon you which they 
would otherwise not possess. To be 
continually looking into the ill feelings 
of your body, always examining your 
pulse, as it were, forever thinking of 
this ache or that discomfort, analyzing 
all the strange or peculiar sensations 
that may come to you, and discussing 
such matters with others — all such con- 
duct gives a basis in your mind for 
the presence of evil spirits who aggra- 
vate and maintain your ailments. Such 
methods of thought and conversation 
are among the things that most do 
hinder the presence and the efficiency 
of the health-giving influx of heaven. 

133 



Yet it seems as if the dominant 
habits of polite society made such 
topics as these the leading subjects of 
anxious inquiry and discussion. It is 
the very method which, under the law 
of spiritual doctrine, would most suc- 
cessfully fasten disease upon us, and 
make the spiritual cure of our sicknesses 
impossible. This may appear like a 
trifling thing, but it is an important ele- 
ment in the law of cure by spiritual 
forces. It is useful to cultivate a habit 
of healthful thought and conversation. 
As we avoid the sicknesses of life as 
our subjects of consideration, we not 
only thus refuse them a spiritual begin- 
ning, but we thereby give to the health- 
producing powers of spiritual life a 
grasp upon us which will be effective 
in producing and maintaining good 
health. 

Another habit of conversation which 

is most closely allied to this naturally 

suggests itself. It is indulging in a 

false sympathy for our friends. We 

134 



I 



G;be "Kigbt :appltcatlon of /iBental dealing 



can be sympathetic for a sufferer in a 
way that will aggravate his malady. 
We may be sympathetic in a way that 
will help his recovery. If one were to 
go to an injured man, tear the bandages 
from the part that was hurt, start the 
stanched blood to flowing again, and 
cause the pain to be renewed, he would 
be regarded as wickedly cruel. But not 
less really cruel is that unkind love and 
sympathy which brings so prominently 
into thought and conversation the sick- 
ness of your friends in the expressions 
of your sympathy for them, that the 
difficulties are aggravated and the pa- 
tient made worse. No sympathy for a 
sick friend is kind that does not help 
him to be better. And all sympathy 
that aggravates his ailments, though ex- 
pressed in the most loving terms and 
affectionate tones of voice, is surely 
cruel. Let our association with each 
other be helpful. All our conversation, 
the thoughts we cherish, the sphere of 
our affections, should go forth to help 

U5 



all with whom we are associated, to 
strengthen them against sickness, to 
weaken the hold of the disease-produ- 
cing spirits of the other world upon 
them. Such sympathy, though it may 
not be replete with sentiment, as is the 
false sympathy I have referred to, has 
the divine love within it, and makes the 
visits of him who can give it like the 
coming of an angel of heaven. 

There are many other external states 
to be avoided if we would open our 
souls in a way to let the divine life flow 
into our bodies for their healing. We 
should avoid a struggle in our own self- 
strength to get well. Healing from 
spiritual powers is not being made well 
from the strength of your will-power. 
In order to demonstrate the power of 
their minds over their bodies, many, 
having given to their disease a real 
character in their recognition of it as a 
positive power in their lives, arise in 
their strength of will with the determi- 
nation to overthrow this power. Thus 
136 



Zbc TRfgbt Application of /Dbental Mealing 



they are really but pitting one part of 
the mind against another ; they are 
combating their faith in disease by their 
faith in their own will. This is like 
fighting the left hand with the right. 
The true doctrine is rather that disease 
in itself has no power, and that the 
health-giving strength to remove it 
comes from a life above yourself, which 
descends into you when you are in the 
right spiritual state to receive it. It 
does not involve, then, a struggle, but 
rather a wise trust. 

4. And especially in this field of the 
application of mental-healing practice, 
must we emphasize that familiar doc- 
trine of the New Church that in spirit- 
ual, forces is contained all power. All 
real substance and all real forces are 
from the spiritual world. Natural forces 
and natural appearances are but the. 
shadows of spiritual substance. The 
sun itself, from which seems to come 
all the power of the material universe, 
is only a shadow of the Lord. All its 
137 



powers of heat and light, whose pres- 
ence brings summer and day and life, 
and whose absence means winter and 
darkness and death, are but reflections 
of the divine love and wisdom, whose 
presence means spiritual warmth, light, 
and life, but whose absence is spiritual 
coldness, darkness, and death. 

And all the myriad exhibitions of life 
and of the forces of nature are shadows 
only of the powers of life that come 
pouring into the world from the realm 
of spiritual forces. Our souls receive 
their power directly from the spiritual 
world. Our bodies receive their power 
from that world by means of our souls. 
Our bodies are the shadows of our souls. 
All their strength, all their character, 
all their life, not only in general but in 
particular, come as a constant gift from 
the presence of the spirit within. Noth- 
ing can be maintained in the states of 
the body which has not some hold upon 
the states of the soul. Apart from the 
spirit within, man's body is an utterly 
138 



Xlbe IRlgbt Application ot Cental IHealtng 



powerless collection of substances that 
will quickly be resolved into their origi- 
nal elements. The body has no power 
to be anything or to do anything except 
it be given it of the soul. As the mind 
of man holds to the doctrine of the 
power of nature, and of the self-exist- 
ence of the body, and of the weakness 
of spiritual things, and of the substan- 
tial reality of natural things, so have 
the weaknesses and sicknesses of his 
flesh a hold upon him. But their hold 
is in this conception he has of them, 
and not in any reality they have of 
themselves. If he repel this concep- 
tion, he is repelling the power of dis- 
eased nature. 

He who in the forest at night sees 
the dim shadows of trees as gloomy 
monsters surrounding him, is filled with 
terror ; and these grim fantasies, whose 
only reality is in the imagination of 
their beholder, as really control him 
as though they actually were what he 
thinks them. In like manner, the ca- 
139 



pacity of the body to become diseased, 
its ability to control the mind, and to be 
dominant in this life, has its greatest, 
if not its only, hold upon existence, in 
the reality which the mind it rules con- 
fers upon the body. How transcend- 
ently important it is, then, if we would 
be blessed with that healing of the body 
which the powers of spiritual life can 
bring us, that we recognize the reality 
and the power of spiritual things, that 
we refuse to give material forces con- 
trol over us by believing in them, that 
we come under the dominion of the 
great flowing river of life and strength 
which comes down through heaven and 
the spiritual world into our souls from 
the Lord. The very existence of the 
material universe is as dependent upon 
the spiritual universe as a shadow is de- 
pendent upon the substance that casts 
it. And yet we turn our backs upon 
the infinite power and reality within, 
and resolutely fix our eyes upon the 
shadow, giving it our allegiance, having 
140 



trbe IRtgbt Application of /IBental Healing 



faith in it, trusting it, and worshiping 
it — thus by the very action of our 
thoughts in reference to it, closing our 
souls to the current of the descending 
life from above. We must, then, if we 
would receive the true benefit in the 
health of our bodies which can come 
from the spiritual power of heaven, be- 
lieve in that power. We must accept 
the doctrine that in spiritual life is all 
true life, that in spiritual power is the 
only power, and that in spiritual reality 
is the only substance. 

But notwithstanding the emphasis I 
have laid on these applications of the 
states of the mind to the welfare of 
the body, it should be understood that 
they are preliminary only. In doing 
these things we are bringing the ulti- 
mates into order. The interior health 
which flows into the soul from right- 
eousness may be stopped at this basal 
point by external misconceptions and 
by erroneous habits thence. The prin- 
ciple under which this may take place 
141 



ps^cblasiB 

is pointed out in the " True Christian 
Religion," in which Swedenborg de- 
clares that "influx adapts itself to ef- 
flux," and that "the understanding from 
above adapts itself to its measure of 
freedom to speak and publish its 
thoughts" (814). And in even clearer 
terms in the " Arcana Coelestia," Swe- 
denborg says : " It is a universal law 
that influx accommodates itself to efflux, 
and that if efl[iux be checked, the influx 
is checked. Through the internal man 
there is an influx of good and truth from 
the Lord, through the external there 
must be an efflux, namely, into the life. 
When there is such an efflux, the influx 
is continual ; but if there be no eflflux, if 
in the external or natural man there be 
resistance ... it follows from the uni- 
versal law just mentioned . . . that the 
influx of good draws itself back, and so 
the internal is closed." (5828.) 

It is from the law which is here enun- 
ciated that it is necessary to assume in 
the outmost of one's life the right at- 
142 



G:bc 1Rl0bt application of Cental Mealing 



titude toward his maladies, in order that 
there may be the utmost freedom for the 
descent of the life of the spiritual man 
into the very most external states of 
the body. As one adopts in his outer 
thought and conversation the four 
things I have presented, so does he as- 
sume such an attitude toward his phys- 
ical self as will give full opportunity 
for the spiritual states of his soul to 
descend into his body and dominate it. 
As one ceases to think of the health of 
his body as an end of life ; as he ac- 
knowledges the great truth that sick- 
ness, like evil, is not from God ; as he 
renounces a belief in the power of sick- 
ness in itself, and thence holds to the 
faith that from the spiritual world comes 
all power, so is he laying the foundation 
of what I have called a righteous-living 
cure. Some go no further, and attain 
health from these states of mind ; but 
the New-Church doctrines would lead 
to a much more interior life and health 
than is possible from these things alone. 

143 



XII. 
THE SUPREME APPLICATION 

WE now come to the application of 
the supreme principles for the 
healing of the body through the soul. 
All before this have been preliminary 
and relatively incidental. The healing 
of the body, which comes from the 
mental states and habits which I have 
inculcated so far, is comparatively su- 
perficial. It consists in the suppression 
or dissipation of symptoms, and of the 
dominion of the natural-mind forces in 
the body. Yet this is the whole field 
of the operation of the average mental 
healer, or mind-curist. 

After having recognized, therefore, 

this outer mental practice, and having 

adopted it, we turn to a doctrine within 

this and above it, and, better than this, 

144 



Zbc Supreme Application 



a doctrine that is religious ; a doctrine 
especially high and pure as it is given 
to us in the New Church. It is the 
teaching of righteous living, as not only 
the best spiritual instrumentality for 
physical health, but as constituting in 
its own blessedness an end so far above 
all questions of bodily concern that it 
should be sought for its own beautiful 
self ; it is the inculcation of a life which 
infinitely transcends in importance all 
questions of our merely physical well- 
being. 

The sickness of the body, under this 
conception of the subject, takes its 
place with the other affairs of the ex- 
ternal life, as a concern of the material 
world, and an incidental of life. Like 
poverty, like bereavements, like all other 
kinds of the outer misfortunes of life, 
physical ills become under this applica- 
tion a matter to turn one's back upon, 
or to place under the feet. The centre 
of life, the "pearl of great price," the 
end that is worthy, that which is an end 
145 



p0SCb!a6f6 

in itself, is spiritual living. As man 
realizes heavenly truths and heavenly 
affections in his thoughts and actions, 
so will his body necessarily become 
well. Spiritual health is the supreme 
end, and if that be attained, we may 
well let the question of physical health 
take care of itself. The laws of spir- 
itual living are in the very highest sense 
the laws of physical health, and while 
the latter should not be the end of care 
of our thoughts, it will follow. Shun 
evils as sins and you will be well. Not 
for the purpose of being physically well 
should we shun evils, nor for any other 
purpose than because they are evil — 
that is, because they are sins. Bodily 
sicknesses may be made use of to en- 
able us to realize what is the nature of 
sin, but they should not be made the 
object of our solicitude. It is hatred 
thaJL is unhealthy, and unkind words 
should be avoided, as we would avoid 
hurtful physical habits. Lasciviousness 
in the mind is an opening toward hell, 
146 



Zbc Supreme application 



through which flows a susceptibility to 
the diseases which lasciviousness repre- 
sents. Contempt for others, if enter- 
tained, is like being inoculated with 
smallpox ; while every pride of the 
heart, if cherished, is worse for the 
body than exposure to a cold-bestowing 
draft. Righteous living from religious 
principles purifies the blood in the most 
effective and interior way. Kindly feel- 
ings toward the neighbor are more 
health-giving than the fresh air of 
spring, bringing vigor and elasticity to 
the limbs ; and charitable deeds are 
for the nourishment of man. How sig- 
nificant in this connection are the Lord's 
words : *' I have meat to eat that ye 
know not of," when His " meat " was 
simply to do the will of His Father ! 

That man should shun his evils as 
sins is very familiar doctrine, but an 
added force is given to it by knowing 
and acknowledging that the evils which 
we shun are diseases in essence and 
cause, and that their removal is the re- 
147 



moval of one's liability to the corre- 
sponding illnesses. That the shunning 
of evils as sins, which we are taught 
constitutes the whole of Christian living, 
is also the supreme instrumentality for 
realizing the health of the body, is the 
special teaching which the New Church 
brings to the subject of the healing of 
the body through the soul. Righteous 
living is healthy living in its very es- 
sence. He who interiorly and truly 
keeps the commandments is bound to 
experience the most perfect health ex- 
teriorly. This is the very inmost of all 
laws for being well. He who lives in an 
assured trust in the divine, who shuns all 
ill-will against the neighbor, who per- 
forms the duties of his calling faithfully 
as a service to God, who assumes the 
attitude toward illness which the New 
Church teaches him to assume toward 
poverty and other disorderly external 
things, is pursuing the course which 
will most surely bring him in the fullest 
possible way health of body. 



Cbc Supreme Application 



Seeking thus spiritual life as the su- 
preme end of our being, and making 
the question of our physical health en- 
tirely subordinate and secondary, does 
not mean that we expect poverty, or 
outer suffering, or sickness. On the 
contrary, it means that while external 
prosperity and health, when considered 
as ends, are secondary, we are assured 
that the Lord will bestow them. We 
have need of health and worldly pros- 
perity, and the Lord knows this and 
will provide. " Your heavenly Father 
knoweth that ye have need of these 
things." They are to be given after we 
have sought the internal and the real. 
** Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and 
his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." He who 
would seek the healing of the body 
through the soul in the highest and 
truest way, should not seek it by the 
subordination of the purposes and ef- 
forts of his soul to physical health, but 
by seeking " first the kingdom of God, 
149 



f>0SCbia6(5 

and His righteousness," and by know- 
ing that his physical and temporal well- 
being shall be " added unto " him. 

This, too, is in line with the words 
of the New Church, as where we are 
taught that *<all happiness belongs to 
those who, from the heart, acknowledge 
the Lord," and that this happiness " in- 
volves all things, taken as a whole or 
individually," including "things celes- 
tial, spiritual, natural, worldly, and cor- 
poreal" (Arcana Coelestia, 1422). How 
comprehensively this promise extends 
itself to the ultimates of life, and in- 
cludes man's body and all his earthly 
interests — "things worldly and corpo- 
real"! This coincides, too, with the 
teachings of the "True Christian Re- 
ligion," where we read that man "be- 
comes prosperous and happy if he ac- 
quires for himself wisdom, and keeps 
his will in obedience thereto ; but he 
becomes unprosperous and unhappy if 
he makes his understanding obedient to 
his will " (588). Note how " prosperity " 
150 



Zhc Supreme Application 



is included among the things which 
come to man from spiritual life. 

Healing of the body through the soul 
through righteous living is the divine 
way of healing. This confers upon 
man soundness and strength from the 
centre to the circumference, from firsts 
to lasts. This healing means God in 
the soul. It is the incarnation of the 
Lord in man. 



XIII. 
CONCLUDING WORDS 

IN conclusion, I will, for the sake of 
a clearer understanding of our sub- 
ject, dwell upon the two radical distinc- 
tions which differentiate the doctrines 
of the New Church from all other teach- 
ings : — 

First, we have in the New Church 
the doctrine of discrete degrees, and 
the accompanying and complemental 
doctrines of influx and correspondences. 
These doctrines enable us to keep spir- 
itual things from natural, and heavenly 
from earthly. And keeping these dis- 
tinct is essential to true thinking, and 
thence to right acting. Classification 
and distinction — the separation of the 
good from the bad, and the true from 
the false — is the very inception of all 
152 



ConcluDing llClor&s 



genuine educational and moral develop- 
ment. And there can be no correct 
thought of spiritual things without a 
knowledge of discrete degrees, and of 
the principles of spiritual truth associ- 
ated with that knowledge. 

Among the first and most important 
of the things which this knowledge ac- 
complishes for us is salvation from self- 
deification. It is the most momentous 
of the benefits that come from the doc- 
trines of the New Church, that they 
enable us to believe in God as the one 
and only source of all things, and yet 
to be saved from pantheism. No intel- 
ligent receiver of the doctrines of the 
New Church can ever imagine himself 
to be inherently divine. Though ever 
giving himself to us, the Lord will al- 
ways be other than we. 

Secondly, in the same line of advan- 
tage, we have in the New Church a 
doctrine of the proprium, that is, a 
doctrine which reveals to us what be- 
longs to man as his own life, in distinc- 
153 



psiecbiagiB 



tion from what is God's. This life, 
which is man's very own, and which in- 
dividualizes him, is the gift of God. In 
that sense it is from God, and does not 
have its origin apart from Him. But — 
and here is the New-Church doctrine — 
God has so withdrawn the appearance 
of his authorship of man and of his 
immanence in man, that man ever ap- 
pears to live from himself, and in that 
appearance he is and will forever be 
other than God. And still further, since 
our existence as separate personalities 
is derived from this appearance, our in- 
dividual immortality is preserved, and 
its continuance is assured by the opera- 
tion of this law. 

Since it is an appearance, one nat- 
urally asks. Is it not a deception, then, 
and an unreality ? is it not a dream and 
a fancy ? 

On the contrary, because the divine 

Father has given His life to man, given 

it for the purpose of making it man's, 

and because He has given it actually^ it 

154 



Conclu&fng 1KIlor&0 



is practically as really man's as though 
he held it from self -derivation. This 
conception of man and of his relation to 
God, solves the problem of creation, and 
enables us to think of man as from God, 
and yet to know that he is not God, 
and never can be God. Reciprocation 
is the essential of heavenly love — es- 
pecially and supremely is it the essen- 
tial of divine love. For the sake of 
reciprocation, therefore, man must be 
always other than God ; and the more 
interiorly man is united with the Lord, 
so much the more clearly does he rec- 
ognize this truth, that he is not God. 

On this subject Swedenborg speaks 
frequently and forcibly. Here is a pas- 
sage from the " Divine Providence " : 
" Love desires to be loved. This is im- 
planted in it, and so far as it is loved in 
return, it is in itself and in its own de- 
light. It is therefore evident that if 
the Lord loved man only, and were not 
loved in return by man, the Lord would 
advance, and man would withdraw. . . . 
155 



P0l5cl)fast6 

The Lord therefore provides for the ex- 
istence of reciprocality in man. Man's 
reciprocality is in this, that the good 
which his will favors and which he does 
from freedom, and the truth of which 
he thinks and speaks from volition ac- 
cording to reason, seem to be from 
himself ; and that this goodness in his 
will, and this truth in his understand- 
ing, seem to be his own ; nay, more, 
they seem to man to be from himself 
and his own, precisely as though they 
were his own. There is no difference 
whatever^ (92.) 

This doctrine which makes the ap- 
pearance of self-derivation in man's life, 
and the maintenance of that appearance, 
the very divine end in creation, saves us 
both from the irrational conception of a 
self-existent force out of God, and also 
from the monstrous idea that we are 
God. It is a doctrine that gives us at 
once a matchless central principle for 
a true spiritual philosophy, and at the 
same time it furnishes us a basis for a 
156 



ConcluDing '(KflocOs 



surpassing system of religious thought 
and life. It saves us both from mate- 
rialism and pantheism, the Scylla and 
Charybdis of spiritual and religious 
thought. 

These New-Church doctrines con- 
cerning the healing of the body through 
the soul are the most comprehensive of 
all teachings. They extend from the 
surface practices of mental healing to 
the heights of spiritual purpose and 
life. They are extremely practical, and 
apply to every state and condition of ex- 
perience. They are serviceable to our 
outmost conditions of mind and body, 
yet they will always extend above 
us to lead us on and up to an ever 
closer conjunction with God, however 
close may at any time be our walk with 
Him. They are steps which extend 
down and out to the humblest followers 
of divine truth, and up and in far above 
the heights of man's loftiest attain- 
ments — to the very Throne. 

And he who keeps them will be sure 
157 



Ip5^cbfa0(5 

of the fruit of his keeping. He will be 
led ever nearer and more near to the 
Fountain of Life — to an ever more en- 
lightened wisdom, an ever more inspir- 
ing love, and thus to an ever more 
abundant life. 

THE END. 



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